


Connections

by AliceAce14



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Autofellatio, Belly Kink, Biting, Bondage, Cannibalism, Cock Warming, Collars, Come Inflation, Consentacles, Double Penetration, Edgeplay, Enemas, F/M, Face-Sitting, Feeding Kink, Hand Feeding, Inflation, Knotting, Licking, M/M, Master/Pet, Masturbation, Multi, Nipple Play, Omorashi, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other, Praise Kink, Semi-Public Sex, Sensory Deprivation, Sexual Roleplay, Sharing a Body, Size Difference, Stuffing, Tender Sex, Tentacle Dick, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Vore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceAce14/pseuds/AliceAce14
Summary: Caleb was never put into an asylum, but instead was experimented upon using a particular rock that fell from the sky just outside of Deastok. As monstrous outside as he feels inside, his story unfolds as a handful of wandering destinies intersect.(All naughty bits have been moved into chapter two if you just want some clean monster fun!)
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre, Fjord/Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71
Collections: Autistic/ADHD Hornantine 2020





	1. Tentative Connections

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the Darrington Brigade and found out that the Cerberus Assembly now has a funky space rock that mutates things into tentacle creatures and my brain went HMM. The fun parts are in chapter 2, there may be a continuation as I'm posting this as part of an ongoing kink prompt fest in the Autistic and ADHD Critters Server, however I may choose to move onto another scenario for further sexytimes, we'll see.

Their little group never came across a wizard and a little goblin girl. Jester, Fjord, Beau, and Molly still managed to defeat the zombies in the circus and were still subsequently blamed along with Yasha. Their investigation proceeded apace and they tracked the Devil-Toad to the small island in the lake. Beau was pissed at this whole ordeal, they had done a good deed and instead were now on the hook for a crime.

But when they got there they found an unexpected sight. They snuck up as best they could and they saw their quarry around the back of a small destroyed house, but there was a man standing in front of him. They seemed to be talking. There was another small figure talking to the little dwarf girl off to the side. Someone stepped on a twig and all the heads swung in their direction. The man put his hand up and the others stilled from leaping into action. The man called out.

"Come on out, we know you're there."

They all looked at each other and emerged. The little girl brightened upon seeing Molly while Kaori growled at them. The man kept his hand up to the fiend. Beau didn’t see the other small figure, and she thought maybe it had been a trick of the light, a shadow. She was human and thus couldn’t see well in the dark.

"We came to take you home sweetheart," Molly said to the girl. The devil growled louder.

"Not without Kaori!"

"Sweetheart, he's a fiend, he hurt those people at the circus."

"I know he's a fiend! It was an accident, he didn't mean to! That man was too old, he shouldn't have been there!"

Molly seemed to be brought short upon knowing the girl already knew about the fiend thing.

"Who are you?" Beau asked the stranger.

"That's none of your concern. I just don't want to see any bloodshed tonight."

"Well, I'm making it my concern," Beau said, approaching him. He was cloaked and hooded, she couldn't really see his body. But he was quite tall, six and a half feet easy, but he was hunched over so it was hard to tell. Beau couldn’t see anything under the hood in the darkness.

"You should take the girl and go," he said. Kaori growled more.

"I don't want to!" she wailed, running to hug Kaori.

"Sweetheart, you know the world of people is not kind to monsters like us. He can't stay anymore, and you can't go with him."

"Listen, if we don't bring him in the Crownsguard is gonna probably execute the Ringmaster, maybe all of us as well since we all got put on the hook for it."

The man's hooded face shifted towards them.

"Why should I care? Why should he care for a ringmaster that would so quickly turn on him? You would kill him and me with no guilt whatsoever."

"That's not true!" Jester said.

"Are you sure? We're just monsters, after all. He's just a fiend."

"Yes I’m sure!" she declared passionately.

"You're sweet. I think you speak for yourself though."

"I don't want to hurt someone I've worked with for quite a while," Molly declared.

"I don't have a problem hurting anyone, really, doesn't matter much who they are, fiend, human, whatever, equal to me if they’re being shitty," Beau said.

"I've been called a monster, in my time. You're only a monster if you act like one," Fjord said quietly. The cloaked figure seemed to be drawn up short. "But we can't let innocent people go to prison for crimes they didn't commit," he continued.

The man was silent for a long time. "If you turn him in they'll kill him."

"Yes, but we don’t want to be killed either," Molly said.

"We're in a big pickle here," Fjord said.

"Did you really just say we're in a pickle?" Beau asked, baffled.

"Focus," he said.

The cloaked man turned to Kaori and they had a low conversation, with the little girl chiming in quietly as well. The man’s back was to them but somehow he didn’t seem concerned about a surprise attack. Beau thought she saw another shadow move but it was hard to tell. The girl and the fiend shared a long hug and then the cloaked man took her from Kaori's arms, holding her almost gingerly. The Devil-toad then turned and leapt away. Their little group cried out in alarm.

"Hey! What gives?" Fjord asked.

"Don't worry. You'll have your culprit."

"Who?"

"Me. You can just tell them he shapeshifted into me."

"They'll never believe that he turned into a dude," Beau said.

"They'll believe it. People often don't care about the difference between monsters."

"Ok you keep talking about being a monster, what the hell is that about?" Beau asked.

The man reached up and untied his cloak and let it fall. Jester stifled a gasp. Before them was... something. He was shaped basically like a person, but he was like, stretched, his limbs were all elongated, his fingers like long thin twigs. He stood up straight as he dropped the cloak and he was easily seven feet. His fingertips were just past his knees. His legs looked like an animal’s, like a very large bird mixed with a human leg, he had a knee and then the long foot and ankle that bent backwards. He was wearing boots that looked like they didn’t fit and no pants under his long tunic. He was paler than even a really pale human, bone white. He looked skeletal. Several tentacles emerged from his back, waving about behind him. He had long, shaggy, dirty red hair that fell over his shoulders. He had a large, loose and dirty shirt on and ragged pants. He had a third eye on his forehead, and another on the side of his neck and more on his tentacles. They were all a wide and unnaturally bright blue, almost glowing in the dim light. He had a second pair of arms that were about normal human length, too short in proportion to his body. They looked almost nervous, the long fingers twitching. He had a bit of a belly and the second pair of arms were wrapped under his stomach. 

They all blinked at him. 

"Are you a fiend too?" Jester asked. 

He gave a… smile of sorts. More of a bearing of his teeth. His mouth stretched out wider than looked comfortable. They were all sharp and the canines were long, both upper and lower emerging about a half inch from his mouth. Fjord almost unconsciously brought his hand to his own mouth, Beau noted.

"Not really. As best I can tell I'd be classified as a monstrosity of some sort, I believe that’s the technical term."

"As best you can tell? You don't know what you are?" Beau asked.

"No. The classifications of your people are of no consequence to me."

"Right. Well you just said that they'd kill whoever we turned in, so how are you gonna avoid that?"

"I have my ways. Take me in." 

"Are we saying you came willingly or should we like tie you up?" Jester asked. 

He seemed to debate. "If I'm unwilling they might be less suspicious. I don't want to cross a lake tied though, so we'll do it on the shore, if you please."

"That works. Are you sure about this? We don't want innocent people to get hurt," Fjord said. 

"I'm neither a person nor innocent."

"Well you didn't do the crime we're turning you in for," Fjord said, undeterred. 

"Either way. Let's go."

"Wait, what's your name?" Jester asked. He gave a tiny, genuine looking smile. 

"Call me Caleb. My real name can't be pronounced in your tongue."

He put his cloak back on and they went across. The fisherman who had taken them across was dubious about the new addition but Caleb was perfectly cordial and charming. It was super weird hearing pleasantries coming from under a hood when she knew the face beneath. He said that he'd also been captured by the creature they'd come chasing but that they had killed it. 

Throughout he kept a firm hold on Toya, who was crying into his shoulder. Beau secretly thought that this girl had some sort of problem that she kept clinging onto… beings like a fiend and this creature. He was talking quietly to her and Beau swore she heard a third voice but maybe it was the girl. Or he could speak in different voices, who knows what sort of powers a creature like that had. 

They got to the shore and paid the fisherman to say he never saw them, which he was happy to do. They tied up Caleb carefully, with Molly taking Toya. She seemed to have calmed. They debated and ended up tying the longer pair of arms behind him and the shorter pair in front. 

"You know I think all the guards who actually saw Kaori like died so as long as they don't like ask any of the people they might not even know he didn’t always look like this," Jester said. 

"Could be a long shot Jessie," Fjord said. 

"Do you think you should be injured?" Beau asked.

"Beau you can't just hit someone while they're tied up!" Jester said. 

"I meant like, fake it! You've got makeup, right?" she reflexively lied.

"Oh! I do!"

"I think keeping it simpler would be better," Caleb said. He leaned down to Beau. "Please don't hit my eyes and watch the teeth," he said. Beau shrugged and popped him twice in quick succession before anyone else could say anything. Caleb's nose started pouring black blood and his lower lip was bleeding. 

"Beau!" Jester said. 

"What? He told me to!"

"It's ok Jessie, we need to sell this to make sure everyone gets out ok, you gotta respect his decisions," Fjord said. She sighed but nodded. 

"Sorry, I wanted to pick places I knew would bleed and look bad," Beau said. 

"Nein, you did good," he muttered, a dark pointed tongue emerging from his mouth and licking both his lip and his nose. Jester giggled. 

“Oh man, can you stick your tongue up your nose?” she asked, and he ignored her.

They went to the Starosta and as they approached Caleb carefully lay down and they picked him up and drug him on his back, him breathing heavily and making a pretty good show of it. He was super heavy but between the three of them they did ok. 

"I'll mend your cloak later!" Jester whispered. 

The conference with the Starosta was tense but eventually they got themselves cleared, though not the ringmaster. At some point Caleb "woke up" and tried to get to his feet but Beau got on top of him and kept him on his knees. His hood came down and he snarled at the guards, looking very intimidating. 

"Hey! Look around dumbass, you'll never get outta here alive, so settle down!" Beau said, one foot on his calf so he couldn't stand, hands on his shoulders. He looked around and sat back on his heels. His shoulders were incredibly bony under her hands. She tried to make her grip look painful but it was only firm, she gave a couple of gentle squeezes that she hope came across comforting.

They handed him to the guards and he snarled at them but let them search him. They tossed his cloak aside and Beau grabbed it, saying it was a good trophy. They checked his pockets and found nothing, and when they lifted his shirt they all looked disgusted to find his belly seemed to just be bands of strange ridged flesh. It looked like a mass of tightly woven tentacles. They took him away and released the four of them and Yasha.

They left the courthouse as free persons.

“Well now what?” Beau asked.

“We gotta wait to make sure he can escape alright, obviously,” Jester said.

Beau sighed. “Fine.”

Molly and Yasha went off with Toya to get her sorted and the three of them staked out the courthouse all night. He was still in there the next day and they were getting worried. But that night they watched an unusually tall Crownsguard slowly exit and make his way down the street. They all exchanged glances and Jester cast Detect Good and Evil again, and indeed the tall “Crownsguard” was reading as a monstrosity. They waited until he was clear before popping out in front of him. His illusion face looked alarmed. Beau also noted that the guard he was impersonating appeared to be half-elven.

“What are you still doing here? You were supposed to get clear so they wouldn’t suspect you!”

“Well we checked out of the hotel, we’ve been staking out the courthouse, we holed up in an abandoned attic, it was a pretty sweet setup actually,” Beau said.

“Why?” he asked, baffled.

“We had to make sure you were clear!” Jester said, like it was obvious. Beau personally wouldn’t have had a huge problem with leaving him, he was strange and he seemed to be able to handle himself, and Beau didn’t want the kind of trouble having him would likely bring. But she also wanted to see just what the deal was with this strange entity.

The guy looked stunned, blinking at them for a moment. “Really?”

“Yeah! We think you should come with us!” she said. She had worn Beau and Fjord down over the day they were staking out the courthouse.

“I- what?”

“It’s better if you just give in to her,” Fjord said.

“I was down from the beginning, I think it’ll be fun, you seem like you’d be useful in a fight,” Beau said.

He glanced around. “We should at least leave town, right now.”

“Molly and Yasha are waiting with a cart, let’s go,” Jester said. She skipped forward and they all followed her at a pace. When they got to the cart Jester reached into it and pulled out the cloak.

“Ta-da! I Mended it like I promised,” she said. He took it slowly, looking grateful and shocked.

They all piled in the cart with one extremely beleaguered horse and set off at a slow pace, Caleb hunkered down under his cloak after the disguise wore off.

“So how did you get out?” Jester asked.

“I have my ways. I’m full of surprises,” he said. He sounded amused.

“Did you make that cloak yourself? I can’t imagine they usually come in that size.”

“I did, yes.”

“The stitches were really good,” she said.

“Thank you, Jester.”

She continued to chatter and pull more tiny bits of info out of him, but not much of substance. Finally, he spoke seriously.

“You all would really travel with me?”

“Yeah, man,” Beau said, unconcerned.

“As long as you don’t work against us,” Fjord said.

“Of course!” Jester said.

“I think this could only be a highly entertaining setup,” Molly said. Yasha nodded.

“You are. A strange group.”

“Yep,” Fjord agreed.

They set up camp on the road that night. Caleb caught them some sort of deer and shared it, though he ate most of it. He seemed embarrassed, he waited until they were done and then took the rest of the deer off into the bushes and they heard a lot of pretty gross noises coming from in there. Jester looked like she really wanted to look but Fjord held her back.

“Trust is earned, Jessie,” he said quietly.

He came back and kept his cloak on but they saw him take off his boots, revealing a foot that unfurled into what looked more like a hand, the toes long and flexible, spread wide. The knuckles were rubbed raw from where he was talking on them in the boots.

“Oh, Caleb, I have a spell, let me heal you, that looks terrible!” Jester said. He awkwardly extended his weird bird leg and Jester grabbed his foot, little pink sparkles healing it and the other one as he took the boot off.

“Why are you wearing shoes when they hurt you?” Fjord asked.

“Footprints. Mine are pretty distinct without shoes,” he said.

“You’re going to damage your feet,” Jester said. “I’m going to figure out how to make you shoes that don’t hurt, or get some,” she declared. Caleb seemed utterly taken aback by this.

“Th-there’s no need for that, uh. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, and it’s stupid for me to have to keep healing you every night, I might need that spell slot if we’re attacked!”

“I don’t need healing, I’ve been fine this whole time.”

“If you’re hurt you need healing, or at least some bandages or something, there’s no sense in just letting yourself be hurt, so quit hurting yourself, healing people sucks!” Jester said. Caleb awkwardly curled up around his stuff, not seeming to know what to do with that.

They kept talking while riding the next day and Jester seemed determined to interrogate Caleb. She had made sure he kept his shoes off in the cart and his hand-feet were absently drumming on the wood and messing with rocks in the bottom of the cart, just as nervous as his hands.

“Where are you from?” she asked. Beau was pretty interested in that as well. There were monsters in this world, but it seemed strange that there was such an intelligent, well-spoken, polite and seemingly docile monster just wandering around.

“Around. Where are you from?”

“Nicodranes. Why does your belly look like all ridged when the rest of you doesn’t?” she asked, interlacing her fingers to illustrate.

“Why are your horns not made of skin like the rest of you?” he countered, and she giggled.

“That would be so gross looking! How come your belly is big but the rest of you is super skinny? Are you pregnant?” she asked.

“I feel like these questions are getting a little rude, Jester,” Molly said.

“I’m so sorry, you’re right, I just say stuff without thinking when I get excited sometimes, Caleb, it’s none of my business if you’re pregnant!”

Caleb was hunched deeper into his cloak but Beau was pretty sure he was laughing.

“I’m not pregnant. I just look how I look.”

“Can you get pregnant?”

“Not that I’m aware of. If I do I’ll be sure to tell you first.”

They were attacked on the road a day later and when Caleb stood up he took a bolt to the shoulder. Before then the talk about extreme syphilis had actually been pretty funny, Caleb had a sense of humor for sure. Beau caught the other one headed for him. She saw movement under his shirt and a crossbow bolt struck from seemingly nowhere, and chaos broke out. Caleb’s longer arms raked out and snatched the one who’d shot him and he brought him close, sinking his teeth into the man’s skull. The others fled in terror.

“Caleb, uh, can you shoot crossbow bolts from your body?” Fjord asked. Caleb shrugged.

“I have many talents.”

“I really want to know how that works, did you shoot it out of your butthole?” Jester said.

“Jester it came from the front-”

“Hey, you don’t know where his butthole is! Caleb where is your butthole!?” she asked loudly. He put his hands on his face for a moment but Beau swore she saw his shoulders shaking silently in laughter again. He took his hands off and looked at Jester blandly.

“I don’t have one,” he said. She gasped and the rest of them also looked over at him. It was very hard to tell if he was kidding.

“You don’t have one?! How do you poop?” Jester asked, aghast.

“I don’t. That’s why my belly is so large, it’s full of poop, one day I will certainly explode and it will be very gross,” he deadpanned. Beau was relatively certain he was kidding now. Probably. Jester giggled.

“Caleb you’re so funny!”

He gave a twitch of a smile before ducking his head and laying down.

In Allfield, Caleb seemed to disappear, but he leapt across buildings and through fire at times. He took out several gnolls before they realized that it was a losing battle and retreated, resolving to follow after. A gnoll that was retreating got a shot off that hit Caleb in the belly and even over the chaos Beau heard the higher pitched voice yell,

“Ah fuck!”

Caleb looked alarmed and rushed to Jester.

“Jester, can you help, please?”

“Sure! Are you hurt bad?” she asked.

“Not me, come with me,” he said. They all followed and he sat down and pulled up his shirt with his smaller arms, and before their eyes the tight weave of tentacles unraveled and revealed… a goblin with an arrow in her shoulder. They all stared for a moment, baffled.

“Has she been in there the whole time?” Jester asked, sounding shocked and delighted.

“Caleb, I told you I’m fine!” she groused.

Jester stepped forward and helped to remove the arrow as Caleb was wrapped protectively around her. It was about at this moment that Beau figured maybe she could trust this guy. This was no monster. There seemed to be some sort of suspiciously mouthlike opening on his stomach where he’d been holding the goblin, like a vertical slit, and Jester had definitely noticed. Once she was done healing she refocused.

“Caleb have you been holding her in your __mouth?__ That’s so gross!” Jester asked, sounding positively delighted.

“I wasn’t in his mouth, just against it!” the goblin defended.

“What’s your name?” Jester asked.

“Nott the Brave,” she said.

“Yeah you’d have to be,” Fjord said, eying the mouth. Beau was pretty sure she could see teeth sticking out.

“Hey! Caleb would never hurt me!” Nott defended. She was still mostly in the nest of tentacles on his belly, scowling at Fjord. The tendrils were all about two fingers thick and they were wrapped around her protectively, gently twining over her arms, her legs, and her torso. They were clearly not restraining at all, they moved with her as she gesticulated. Fjord held up his hands.

“Hey, hey, sorry, just a joke,” he soothed.

“Ok, let’s get the gnolls,” Beau said.

Beau had been fascinated by this Caleb guy since they met. She liked a mystery, so she had made it her mission to pry this guy’s secrets out. Like why he went catatonic sometimes when he killed people with fire. But she had never expected this much.

“I am going to tell you the story of how I murdered my mother and father,” he said. There was so much to unpack there, she didn’t think monstrosities had parents, but she suspected that her theories were about to be confirmed. After all, what kind of monster had a Zemnian accent?

“I was once a human like you,” he said.

“I’d thought so.”

“I was a bright boy, talented, they said. Me and two of my fellows were selected.” He detailed his whole story of killing his parents and going crazy, breaking down.

“They decided I was useless, I was a wreck. So, they put a crystal in my head.” He pointed to the side of his head and Beau could see a small lump there under his long, lanky red hair. “It did things. To my mind. I was gone. I saw such… such things. Visions of the Abyss, I think. Things I couldn’t begin to describe. Shadow. Demons. Cold. But I didn’t give up. Couldn’t. My mind was gone, but when they put new crystals in me my mind would be catapulted back by the pain. It hurt when they cut into me, but what happened next hurt worse. The pain of my body. Twisting and reshaping into this unnatural configuration. Growing a whole second set of arms was an experience. But I came back. It would have been so easy to leave this painful body and just drift away. But I came back, I had to. And I knew more than I had before. I knew that the memory of my parents conspiring against the Empire was false. I was in a dungeon of sorts, in heavy chains. A lab. Then I killed a guard and escaped,” he said.

“That’s some story,” Beau said. Nott tried her best to comfort him, but he clearly wasn’t ready to hear it.

In Zedash Jester, Nott, and Beau went in and with some difficulty made a custom order to a shoe maker who was very confused. Fjord and Molly were off making sure he was still reading somewhere. They said they had and extremely large friend with no feet who walked everywhere on his hands and needed custom shoes that wouldn’t make him leave weird footprints because they needed to be stealthy when hunting monsters. Nott, weirdly enough, knew almost to the hair’s distance how big his feet were and where he held his weight. Beau reflected that knowing that sort of detail about someone was much more intimate than just knowing what their vagina looked like or something. Not feet specifically, but just that sort of closeness to know even the seemingly inconsequential things about someone. She’d never had anyone in her life that she thought even knew her shoe size, besides the people her parents paid to know these things. Nott claimed she knew because she was ‘just observant’, whatever that meant. Beau absently wondered if there would ever be anyone who would want to observe her that closely, to know the patterns of freckles on her back or notice the way she ate bread by picking the really crusty bits off.

The shoes were like clown shoes but they had like, finger slots inside to make them more comfortable, and Caleb looked like he was about to cry when they gave them to him and he disappeared for several hours after politely thanking them, possibly to do so, so Beau considered that a success.

They went on a mission for the Gentleman after the war began in Zedash and they needed to skip town. Caleb removed his nice new shoes for the swamp since the mud filled in footprints quickly anyway. Once he took them off Beau suddenly understood a lot more about him. The awkward and careful way he stepped and his weird gait was because he was wearing shoes, even if theirs were more comfy they were definitely clunky and not super easy to walk in, she had to imagine. With his shoes off his body language was still awkward but he moved much more confidently. His widespread toes seemed to actually help him not sink so bad so that was nice. For him. They saved a bird child, completed the mission, and had an adventure with some rage gnomes.

But on their second mission everything went to shit. Molly died and they couldn’t do anything about it. They met a couple of new friends, a very nice firbolg mom and a hot dwarf. Beau noticed that Caleb took his boots off again, and when not slogging through a swamp he moved like a predator. Or maybe that was just the mood he was in. He stalked down the road to the shitty swamp town. Caleb just kept his cloak hood up the whole first day. But when they met Caduceus Clay for the first time in a while Caleb took down his hood. The firbolg looked at him intently.

“Huh, that’s interesting,” he said.

And that was pretty much that. They gained a new ally. They all pretty much immediately liked Caduceus, even Caleb seemed to warm to him very quickly, he had such a calm air about him.

There was nothing calm about the battle to take down the Shepherds. When it was finally all over and Caleb’s firebolt had taken out Lorenzo, Beau noticed that for the first time he didn’t go catatonic. Instead he seemed angry. He drug the body over to a corner, not even out of the room, and pretty much in front of all of them started furiously eating the body. That line that ran down the center of his lower jaw split open and his jaw expanded both down and out. There was a long, long tongue inside and a bunch of very small tentacles. His mouth on his belly opened as well and it was indeed full of teeth, the tentacles there plunging into the corpse and tearing off chunks and stuffing them into the lower mouth, as he supported his body on his upper arms and also tore at the body with his shorter arms, Beau was impressed with the startling efficiency of the whole process. She hadn’t really explicitly registered it before but Caleb’s body seemed almost designed to eat. The longer, stronger tentacles on his back came out from under the cloak, some of them holding the cloak up and away from the blood, and waved around, the eyes on them looking out for anything trying to attack him and steal his food, presumably.

“Holy FUCK!” Keg yelled. Oops. Beau had forgotten she was here for a sec, it was unusual for her to forget a hot lady was around, but the display was almost mesmerizing in how grotesque it was. “Ok, oh dear gods, I’m going upstairs now! You have fun with that!” she said, clanking up the stairs. Beau looked worriedly to Caduceus, but he just shrugged.

“Well, you don’t see that every day,” he said, then he went upstairs as well.

Caleb literally ate the entire body, which Beau was pretty impressed by. They got their friends and left him to it, and when Beau came back down the body was almost gone and he was sitting in a corner with what looked like most of a ribcage that he was snapping apart and stuffing into his lower mouth with his thinner tentacles. As she descended the lower stairs he rounded on her, an absolutely feral look on his face. He snarled at her and took a few steps forward, on all fours, stalking towards her.

“Hey! Do not make me smack the shit out of you!” Beau yelled loudly. That seemed to draw him up short and he stopped, then abruptly turned from her and scuttled away to press his face into the corner. He made some sort of distressed noise.

“Hey, you good?” she asked.

“Ja,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to lose control like that, it was unbecoming.”

She snorted. “That’s one word for it. We’re all mad about Molly, you express it however you like, as long as you don’t take it out on us.”

“I… I apologize, Beauregard. I would never want to hurt any of you.”

“You don’t want to eat us? What, you think we’re gross or something?” she joked, trying to draw him out, since he was still turned away from her.

“Nein, you- I- there’s no good answer to that question.”

“I didn’t mean eating us, at any rate. Some people, when they’re mad, they just take it out on whoever is closest,” she said quietly.

“I would never do that either. I am not usually one to get angry, this was… a concerning episode.”

“As long as you don’t do that, say, in the middle of a city, I don’t particularly care and I don’t think the others do, either.”

“I believe I can refrain. But then again I also thought I would never do that in front of any of you.”

“Well if you start getting crazy in an inconvenient place we’ll try to keep you from totally blowing your cover.”

“Maybe you should not, I could hurt you all,” he said. She snorted.

“I’d like to see you try. We could take you.”

She walked forward and grabbed a tentacle, not on an eye, and tugged on it. “Come upstairs, Caduceus is making food. You’re probably not hungry but you can sip some tea or some shit.”

“Thank you, Beauregard,” he said quietly. He rose and followed after her, and she noticed his footsteps sounded heavier. He set up for them a lovely protective dome, and while Beau did not end up availing herself of it, she saw how much it meant to Jester and Fjord that Caleb was thinking of them and figured out a spell that would make sure they were never taken again. They all pretended they couldn’t hear Caleb’s stomach rumbling throughout the evening and he kept his body covered in his cloak, embarrassed, so he just looked like a weird black lump in the middle of the room. The morning came and they all headed out to escort Ophelia Mardun back to Zedash.

Caleb often found it remarkable how lucky he was to have found these people. For all that he didn’t deserve it, somehow he had found this small group of people who would even go so far as to call an abomination like him friend. He didn’t know how it had happened. They hadn’t even seemed to mind when he’d absolutely lost it and had eaten in front of them. He hadn’t thought he would ever be able to do that.

It wasn’t hard to leave the party and prowl around for some creatures or another to eat. Sometimes people, humans or roving bands of orcs or more gnolls, attacked him and he couldn’t escape without killing them. And then, well. It was far from the worst he’d done. He was pretty sure that he could never be free of this corruption, so he may as well accept it. He could only hope he didn’t get any worse. He did find, to his surprise, after he ate Lorenzo, that the cold affected him less. He thought it was perhaps because Lorenzo was more powerful than him.

He’d found that being around the Nein had abated the worst parts of being a monster, namely the loneliness. Nott had helped a lot in that department, and he was ever grateful, but having a small group was amazing. It was so overwhelming at times, Caleb often needed breaks to be alone, but he could always find company with them. They had proven themselves to each other over and over again. He was reluctant to admit it but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to pick up and leave.

When they ended up at sea, things got bad. He’d felt peace, in the ocean, that first time. He’d disguised himself and then gotten in the water naked, but under the illusion he found that he was a very fast swimmer. He was able to use his tentacles like an octopus and he could hold his breath for quite a while. But when they were at sea there was no prey. They couldn’t stop the ship and he couldn’t hunt and keep up with it. There were stores and the create food spell, but Caleb hungered. He was always hungry even when his belly was full, but this was worse. The hunger hurt and gnawed at him. He was starving.

Starving. He locked himself in the brig.

They did their best to make it comfortable for him, and they combined two hammocks together for him to sleep on, so now most of the upper area of the small cell was occupied by what looked weirdly like a nest or ropy spiderweb. His thoughts grew fragmented. He heard noises but didn’t recognize them, animal sounds. He smelled prey, warm flesh and blood. Close, close enough to grab. He struck and pulled the food through the bars, slamming it into them, wrapping his tentacles around it and holding it to the metal bars as it screamed. He sunk his teeth into the meat on the shoulder and tore a chunk out, the blood fresh and so good.

He was pelted from all sides with pain, a crossbow bolt, a burning spell that hurt, and his prey wrenched from him. He howled and reached out, and wanted to slam himself against the bars, but something deep in him, some last scrap of sanity, told him he was strictly forbidden from hurting himself. He gnawed at the bars and moaned despondently. He was going to die. He was so confused. He was hungry. The blue and pink prey made noises at the green prey he’d almost gotten. A smaller green food was watching him with a weapon pointed at him. They went away and he slipped onto the floor waiting to die.

Something wet slapped him and he grabbed it and ate it before he even registered it was food, but it was! He sat up and looked and the blue one tossed another fish at him and he swallowed it whole. She tossed a few more from the bucket and left, returning with more. He ate many fish and they were wiggling and alive and so very good.

“How many fish until we get Caleb back, come on!” Jester complained as he caught another fish in his mouth. Ah. He squinted at her and she paused. “Caleb?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. She grinned brightly and it almost hurt him.

“Guys he’s back!” she said. They all came down and he looked at Fjord. There was a scarred over dent in his shoulder and Caleb winced.

“Don’t worry, I think I can get that fixed with a few days of work,” Caduceus said.

“It’s fine, Caleb, you didn’t mean it, I assume,” Fjord said easily.

“It’s not fine!” he hissed. He sighed. “You should let me out. I’ll just swim to shore somewhere, you shouldn’t be on a ship with me.”

“Absolutely not, we need you Caleb, and Fjord and Caduceus figured out how to fish pretty good so you’ll be fine,” Jester said.

“We’re not just dumping you over the side of the boat, Caleb, that would make us the monsters here,” Beau said calmly.

Caleb was still worried. He wasn’t worried for his friends as much if he escaped but he was worried for the crew. He had a feeling that even in his more monstrous state that he would go for the less familiar targets that were easier to kill. They were forbidden from going down in the brig so he had no idea what they thought was down there. They’d seen him in his cloak get on the boat of course. Maybe they thought he was a werewolf or something. When they finally got to the island with the lizard people he immediately stalked into the jungle and they let him go, despite the protests of Jamedi. They had mostly kept him away from Avantika, they claimed that he had a tendency to sleepwalk and that’s why he slept in the brig because he would walk off the boat. He didn’t take long to find some sort of animal and devour it, and he felt better. Still hungry, but better.

Eating the fruit after Jester shoved it in his mouth was probably a mistake, but he felt so good and relaxed. She had just jammed an entire fruit in his upper mouth and he had instinctively swallowed it down, it slid down his throat like a snake swallowing an egg. They totally had this battle. Eventually they killed the hydra and obviously they should eat what they killed. So while they were talking or whatever Caleb just went around to the other side of the body and dug in. It was pretty good meat. Eventually he’d worked his way into the long body and was crawling up it. He heard some sort of screaming outside and narrowly avoided a saber that was suddenly stuck in near his head. Mad, he clawed upward and popped out of the body, snarling.

“What ze hell is that?” Avantika yelled, clearly preparing to strike again. Caleb ducked back inside the body and ignored her. No further attacks came so Caleb continued. His belly was full but he was still hungry, of course. He heard a noise and turned to see Jester poking her head into the hole he’d dug into the corpse. He blinked at her dumbly, wanting to defend his kill but the signals not quite reaching his body very fast, his vision swimming.

“Caleb, you should probably come out of the hydra now, Fjord and Avantika are-” there was a rumbling and Caleb was instantly on high alert, his danger senses shocking him out of eating mode. He scrambled out to see that the water level was rising. At least it cleaned all the blood off of him. Then it was a mad dash to escape before they drowned, luckily Caleb was fueled up, essentially. Fjord had managed to get his ball in the hole or whatever so they were headed to Darktow before they were going to head out with Avantika to another temple. At least that was her plan.

“Caleb you scared the shit out of all of us with the hydra,” Jester had giggled back on the boat, once the high had worn off.

“Apologies,” he muttered, lying in his hammock, though with the door open since he was sated for now. His head was killing him.

“We were looking at all the crazy murals and suddenly the body started twitching and Nott was screaming that it was still alive. Avantika’s face when you popped out was pretty good though,” she laughed. He usually loved her laugh but now it was piercing. He groaned.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you but I’m super out of spells, I can bring you some water or tea though?”

“That would be rather nice, thank you Jester,” he said.

She came back with tea and picked up her story. “Anyway, I was like super impressed at how quickly you ate that huge hole all the way into that hydra! And I mentioned it to Beau and she made some sort of vague remark about how you were really good at eating quickly, and I remembered that I was super out of it but I think you ate Lorenzo that one time and Beau saw too. The way your mouth split open like that was crazy! I kinda wanna see it again, I wanna draw you for my sketchbook!” she enthused. It took Caleb’s mind a second to process that. Ah yes, he’d almost forgotten she’d seen him literally eating his way into a corpse. Delightful.

“Maybe once my head stops hurting,” he said tiredly.

“Ok! I’ll leave you alone now,” she said, her goal apparently accomplished.

He did pose for her sketchbook. She had him crouched, without his cloak, one set of hands on the floor and the other holding his knees, his upper mouth opened up vertically and horizontally, his lower jaw split apart. She got a good sketch of him and then came over to look inside his mouth like he’d seen her do with Fjord a couple times, pulling it open to see the multitude of small and thin tentacles inside.

“Wow, that’s crazy!” she said. “Are they like little tongues? Can you taste stuff with them?”

He nodded, he couldn’t talk like this. She dug in her pocket, pulled out some sort of pastry, and stuck her whole hand into the mass of tentacles, giggling as they automatically touched all over her hand and removed the pastry, drawing it whole down his throat and crushing it along the way.

“That is so funny, I love it!” she said, apparently delighted. “It looks kinda like that carnivorous kelp, the way they’re all kinda wiggling around in there,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out more handfuls of pastries, apparently having fun feeding him the stale baked goods. Caleb, naturally, indulged her, even though the pastries were very firm and quite old, he’d obviously eaten worse.

Things got a little dicey in Darktow but they managed to escape. They got the last ball from the lair of the sea hag, while Caleb had managed to grab a shark since he was already in the water anyway. They went to check out the site where the second ball should be placed since it was sort of on the way and they got into a fight with some sea creatures. After they cleared out the place Caleb took the opportunity to eat some of the weird sea people and giant crabs, which were quite delicious. They hauled the bodies back with them and Caduceus had a spell to keep them from getting gross, which honestly wouldn’t have stopped Caleb but would have been very unpleasant on a boat.

They had a crazy adventure in the Happy Fun Ball and they were headed back to land.

“Your name was Veth?” Caleb said. She nodded, there by the river where she died. “When I was human, my name was Bren Aldric Ermendrud,” he said. Everyone present, except Beau and Nott, gasped.

“I don’t want anyone’s pity,” he said quietly.

No one mentioned it, thankfully, for a while. Something in Caleb felt naturally at home in the long and dark tunnels. The room with the crystals was beautiful but Caleb couldn’t help but think of the ones in his body. He barely resisted clawing at the one in his head as he’d done in the past. He knew from experience that it seemed to be fused to his skull, not merely placed under his skin. He couldn’t pull it out.

After they killed the Ropers, the others looked at them in bafflement.

“What the hell were those?” Fjord asked.

“Aberrations, monsters, like me, although I’m not technically an aberration,” Caleb said.

“Oh, Caleb, you’re not like them, you’re like, way cooler,” Jester said.

“And significantly more handsome,” Nott said. Caleb looked at her dubiously and then saw almost everyone nodding in agreement. He just looked at them in confusion.

“I mean… I suppose it’s not hard to beat a cone with a mouth on it,” he said, confused. He absolutely wouldn’t apply the word ‘handsome’ to himself in any situation.

“Caleb you’re like, totally the prettiest monster we’ve seen,” Jester said. He felt a blush rising to his face and he could not handle this, so he just turned and kept walking down the tunnel. Eventually the others came too and he kept to the back, since he was the only one who could see behind himself without constantly turning his head. The eyes on his tentacles and elsewhere weren’t really fully functioning eyes like the ones in his normal spots in his head, they looked like eyes but they were more just spots on him that could detect movement and light or dark, and that was about it, they were very primitive. He was basically just aware of things behind him, not what they were.

“Ding-dong, it’s 4 o’clock.”

“Shut up!” Nott said.

He was very bored and he wondered how long it would be until one of them hit him. He was also getting hungry again, which was not good. The Ropers tough skin would have taken too long to get through and he hadn’t wanted to slow the group but now he was starting to think that was a bad call. He hoped they would come across an edible enemy before long. Unfortunately the next two things they came across were a bunch of Kobolds, way too many to fight, and the fire giants. Honestly their little Kobold guide had been starting to look pretty good to him before he was unfortunately splattered. Thankfully that create food and water spell was enough for now, though he still hungered he wasn’t in danger of losing control. Yet. It had taken at least a couple weeks to go really crazy on the ship. He felt bad for making them use the spell slot on him but it was that or he would have to just run off down the tunnel and hope he came across something he could take down by himself and eat. Either that or Nugget would probably be on the menu.

It was extremely embarrassing that Jester had discovered that, unfortunately, the most efficient and also delightful— to her at least— way to keep him fed was for her to hold her hands in his mouth and slowly cast the spell, making food form in her hands as fast as his oral tentacles could grab it, just as she had done before with the water part of the spell or with feeding him stale pastries. The food was indeed bland but there was a lot of it. With her standing and him kneeling before her, it was almost like an act of worship. He once tore his eyes from Jester to notice the whole rest of the group looking with rapt attention, the looks on their faces hard to parse. Once they noticed him looking they all went back to their own food, pretending to ignore the proceedings. He had no idea what could have been going on in their heads, watching such a bizarre display.

The wastes of Xhorhas proved to be a somewhat fruitful hunting ground, though he had to be ever watchful. Then after everything in Rosohna, he found pretty good hunting to the south while they were in the city. The ghosts were spooky but didn’t seem to want to bother him.

Deep in the bowls of the tomb beneath Bazzoxan, a horror was unleashed. Caleb couldn’t help but notice a certain similarity. They escaped but lost a friend. Their mad flight out of there led them to a volcano filled with holy fire. Caleb was distinctly uncomfortable. He was definitely very uncomfortable with the aasimar Reani and tried his best to make sure she didn’t know what he was, he was worried her angel friend might just decide that he was next on her kill list. That plan didn’t last super long as he did end up being revealed when his hood fell back as he was frantically drawing to escape the dragon. He yanked it back up as he went through, hoping that she was too frostbitten to notice, but no such luck. Once they were clear of the library she whirled on them.

“Ok, what are you?” she said, looking at Caleb.

“Someone who just saved all our lives, I hope you would remember,” he said.

“Oh, I remember, I’m just real curious. Are you evil?”

“He’s not evil just because he looks like that, Reani, that’s mean!” Jester said.

“But- if he’s a monster. Then he’s. Evil?” she asked, clearly coming up against another discrepancy in her black and white thinking.

“I’m a monster. Based on what you’ve seen, am I evil?”

“No? You just seem really sad,” she said.

“Well. Anyway, I’m not evil. I’m just a monster, trying to live my life, and help my friends,” he said.

“Ok. That’s fine then,” she said, apparently satisfied with that.

After that they tried to get Yasha back, failed, and then went for a very unfun jaunt into the Happy Fun Ball. Seeing as there was no one else around except monsters and mage hunting golems, Caleb decided to stow his cloak and take off his shoes, seeing as a golem had caught him by it when he tripped and had collared him, rendering him useless, most embarrassingly. Also, he almost died or whatever, less important. It didn’t matter if he was alive if he couldn’t help his friends. They managed to kill that construct, luckily, and Caleb put his cloak in the bag. It was strange and awkward to walk around without his personal shield to hide behind. Now they could all see just how twitchy and nervous he was, not that they probably didn’t already know, but he and Nott shared a similar disposition of being constantly worried and hunted. Nott had blossomed in Xhorhas where people who looked like her were accepted. But there was nowhere like that for him, except alone amongst his friends.

They went to Rexxentrum and Caleb was not ok. When Caleb eventually killed the Laughing Hand he felt only pity for the man he had once been, corrupted by forces beyond his control. He hoped that he was finally at peace. He came face to face with his old master and he didn’t die. Somehow. But he was known now. He stowed his shoes in the bag, even if he was very grateful for them, there was no point in them now beyond sentimentality. They were no longer worth how they hindered his movements. Let them come.

He was beyond thrilled that he was able, finally, after all this time to return Veth to her true self. He did think about whether it would work for him, but somehow he sensed that, like Veth, there would be more to it if he ever wanted to try. More than just a change of flesh held him to this form. He didn’t know what it was precisely that had transformed him, but he suspected that it was more powerful than even this spell they had all worked on together.

Somehow the peace talks did not explode. They defeated a dragonturtle, had an absolutely insane experience at Travelercon, and decided to take… a bit of a break. They returned to their house for some well needed rest.

Caleb went hunting. The wastes were dangerous but so was he. He managed to take down a sizable enough animal. He hunched over it, his belly tentacles stabbing into the beast and dragging it into his belly as he also gnawed on it with his upper mouth, tearing easily through flesh. He thought as he ate.

When they had started encountering information about Tharizdun, Caleb had needed to lie down for a while after. He had been, mentally, to the Abyss, where Tharizdun lay chained, hungry and waiting. He had felt the terrible presence of the ender of worlds, the one who wished to devour everything. Oblivion. Caleb thought he had escaped his notice, but maybe not. He didn’t know. He had overheard, once, that the opal-like crystal slivers were part of a large crystal that had fallen from the sky. He didn’t know why his mind was called to the Abyss, but he feared that Tharizdun had done it somehow. When they had spoken to the gnome who was researching the moon, he had stilled as he remembered that some people thought that meteors were pieces of the moon Ruidis, which was long thought to be a defunct project of the Betrayer Gods. Maybe those people weren’t so crazy after all. He knew that the Betrayer Gods had summoned the Chained Oblivion back to this world in the Calamity. Was the moon part of that project? Was there some piece of that now embedded in his skull?

He knew that he felt the effects of the Chained One’s influence, he had noticed all of his party’s eyes cut to him as Allura spoke of his influence causing hunger and rage. And he was so very hungry, and it seemed like it had only been getting steadily worse these last few years. Very slowly, but it had been noticeable.

He knew that the Chained Oblivion wasn’t done with this world, his influence hadn’t subsided. He had only grown hungrier in the five years since he’d fled that prison. His hunger hadn’t abated after their defeat of Obann.

He heard rustling in the bushes. His eyes on his tentacles didn’t detect any movement yet, though. Great, probably more orc raiders. He ignored them and made more growling noises, hoping if he looked and sounded horrible enough that they wouldn’t bother him. He heard people whispering, indistinct, what kind of idiots were these? If they wanted to sneak up on him they were doing a lousy job. The voices drew closer, no sight yet. He had almost finished his meal. He stood, stuffing the head of the animal into his lower mouth, snarling in the direction of the voices. He kept his growl up as he crunched on the skull, casting his eyes about. A spell shot from the bushes and he was held in place. His eyes widened. These were no raiders. A warmage in Krynn gear emerged, looking baffled. From what Caleb had learned from Essek this was a midlevel mage, according to his attire. A warrior was with him in black hooked carapace armor, an Echo Knight.

“I’ve never seen one of the creatures from the Barbed fields this far south. This is most concerning.”

“I’ve never seen one like this at all, there are usually distinct types. It vaguely resembles a sorrowsworn. Perhaps it should be brought in for study.”

Panic started to creep into Caleb. No. Please. He struggled harder against the spell but he was held fast. The mage brought forward what looked like shackles. Somewhere the Chained One was laughing. As the collar was clapped over his neck he went unconscious.

He awoke very much chained and he promptly flipped the fuck out and went catatonic as he was cast back into that place where he first woke up horrifically transformed. He was gagged, some sort of metal contraption. He wouldn’t be able to speak. He was bound much like the Scourger woman, hands chained to the floor. He got his claws to the ground and started frantically scratching in the dirt. The door opened and he scratched faster, drawing the only thing he thought would get through to them, the Dynasty symbol. He hadn’t had any of his possessions on him while hunting, he didn’t like cleaning the blood off of his bags. But before he was even close to done he was hauled up by several guards. He tried to fight but there were so many and the manacles sapped his magical and physical strength. He was led to a table and strapped down, never good. He was flashing back to them putting the crystals in his body. He began reaching up with the tentacles on his back, trying desperately to get the lock on the thing covering his mouth undone. It appeared to be bolted shut with a padlock. He inadvertently let out some sort of whining sound in frustration.

Essek walked in. But of course he wouldn’t know Caleb like this. He had been in the guise of a very tall tiefling when he had met the queen, and every meeting with Essek since. Caleb was desperate not to be tortured or whatever but he didn’t know how to signal to him- oh! Panic had made him stupid. He snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. No Frumpkin. Not that he’d expected that to work. Essek looked up at the noise from whatever report he was reading, so he did it again. He made a noise and chomped on the thing in his mouth. Essek frowned.

“You’re definitely a monstrosity of some sort, we checked you,” he said. Caleb nodded. Essek raised an eyebrow.

“Do you understand me?”

Caleb frantically nodded again. Essek approached and Caleb struck, his tentacles whipping out and grabbing the quill and report out of his hands. Essek’s reactionary Shield had protected him but he’d dropped the two objects in casting, and obviously Caleb hadn’t been trying to hit him. Caleb scratched out in big letters on the report “C A L E B” and then turned it to Essek. Essek seemed to be stopped short by that. Caleb wiggled the report emphatically and Essek snapped his fingers. The piece preventing him from speaking opened and Caleb shook it off his head. Caleb worked his jaw for a second, then looked to Essek.

“You were not born with venom in your veins.”

Essek was shocked for a moment but still looked skeptical. “How do I know you’re not a mind reading creature?”

“Go tell my family, Den Nein, as you call us. Tell them that you’ve caught a dangerous monster claiming to be Caleb Widogast. Ask them to describe me if you don’t believe them. They will tell you that this is me. I’m sorry for lying to you and the Queen, but I hope you see why.”

“How did a creature such as yourself wind up with… such a group?”

“Yes, I know we’re kind of odd. Real assholes at times. But they accepted me, when I had no one, each of them. As for my motives… they are not so inscrutable. I am a monster, yes, but I wasn’t- I wasn’t always like this. The Empire is cruel to its own subjects just as it is cruel to your people.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Your own people did this to you?”

“I was once human.”

Essek looked furious. “I will speak with Den Nein. You will be brought back to your cell and no one will touch you until I return.”

He swished out and a bunch of guards came back, looking significantly more nervous now that the muzzle was off, but he was perfectly calm. He was chained back down in his cell and as soon as he was left he began working on the locks. He didn’t have Veth’s’s skill and he probably wouldn’t succeed but he kept jamming his tentacles into the locks anyway. He didn’t get very far when the door burst open and Jester launched herself at him, with the guards yelling behind her that he was dangerous or whatever. He couldn’t move his arms so he opened his tentacles and gingerly wrapped them around her.

“Oh shit it’s trying to eat her!” he heard the exclamation.

“Fuck off! If he ever eats me it won’t be like that!” Jester yelled, and Caleb felt himself blush. That seemed to bring the guards up short as they enjoyed that mental image. Caleb could see some of them looked ill. Essek stepped into the doorway and snapped, and the chains fell off. Caleb sighed in relief, bringing up all his arms to hug Jester. He stood up still holding her. He gently set her down and rewrapped his tentacles. They had taken his clothes so now Jester could see that he had lost a certain limb entirely while gaining many more. But that didn’t matter. He looked to Essek.

“Thank you very much.”

“No need to thank me, there was of course no question of the course of action we would take once we figured out who you were. The Queen is aware of your status and extends her condolences now that she knows the true depths the Empire will stoop to, experimenting on its own people,” he said with disgust. Jester didn’t react but Caleb felt her register that.

“Thanks, Essek. Can he have his clothes back?”

“Ah yes, here,” he said, and someone brought them. Caleb dressed and once he was situated he cast disguise self as his large tiefling form. Essek escorted them out and they walked back toward the Xorhaus.

“You didn’t say the Empire did this to you,” Jester said quietly.

“I did not. I don’t want pity from any of you. I’m fine.”

Caleb collapsed in his bed and passed out. At some point he was half-awoken by Veth squirming up to his belly and he gladly folded her in.

Caleb no longer bothered to keep up his disguise in Xhorhas. As long as they couldn’t see his body he just looked like a weird, small ogre or something in his face. He got speculation he was some sort of albino mutant orc. He combed his hair and started to put it in a ponytail, and his third eye mark on his forehead could be passed off as a tattoo. He found it was suddenly much easier to negotiate with shopkeepers, although he didn’t much enjoy intimidation tactics on innocent bystanders. With enemies he may have enjoyed it a little. He felt more at peace. He got a couple looks but for the most part he was anonymous. Unremarkable. It wasn’t acceptance but it was enough to be… normal. His lessons with Essek proceeded and he could pick up a dropped item with his foot without worrying. They all had their vocations in downtime, Beau and Yasha had teamed up for a tour of the fighting pits and picking up some extra coin doing bouncer/bodyguard work so they were mostly out of the house. Caleb suspected they were doing other things besides just working together. Veth took a long trip to the Coast to spend time with her family. They settled into their vacation peacefully.


	2. Deep Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get saucy. Y'all know what you're here for.

It was late at night and he was soaking in the hot tub, which he liked to do but generally only by himself or with Veth, who didn’t like the water, so generally by himself. He was sitting on the bottom and splayed in the center of the water he’d heated up until he was almost boiling himself. He pretty much occupied the whole pool as he sank under and let all of his tentacles hang loose and open, and he was feeling quite relaxed, his eyes closed. He’d discovered after eating those sea people in their ocean adventures that he could actually breathe underwater and also air through the tentacles on his back. The scalding water wasn’t pleasant to breathe so he had most of his back tentacles sitting out on the side of the pool as he was sunk into the water. His other eyes detected someone descending the stairs and he lifted his head and opened his main eyes to look. Jester came down in a towel, smiling at him.

“Hey Caleb, it’s fine if you say no, I know this is like your zen place, but can I join you?” she asked. He lifted his face out of the water.

“Of course Jester, the two of you built this after all.”

She nodded and opened her towel, and she was naked, of course. He turned all of his eyes away.

“Caleb,” she said. She didn’t continue until he looked at her. She looked like she was bursting to ask him something but restraining herself. Considering all the things she absolutely did not restrain herself from saying, this had to be an especially crazy thing.

“Yes, Jester?”

“I know that you go along with what I ask, a lot, and Fjord has actually said something to me about it,” she began. Caleb blinked. He hadn’t expected that from Fjord.

“He did?”

“Yeah, he said that you seemed to have a real weakness when it comes to saying no to any of us, me in particular.”

Caleb couldn’t deny it.

“I’m absolutely dying to ask you something but I also really, really don’t want to because it’s something super selfish. Fjord said it would be… cruel, even. And if I believed him I absolutely would never ask, but there’s this small part of me that thinks that maybe you would like it? But I don’t wanna ask because I feel like you’ll just say yes even if it is cruel. Maybe I shouldn’t. This was a bad idea,” she almost wailed, her voice getting up to squeaking levels like it sometimes did. Caleb blinked at her, baffled, as was common.

“Well, now I’m curious.”

She debated for a long moment. “You have to promise me, promise me that if you don’t think you’ll like it or get anything out of it, you’ll say no? Swear it to me Caleb, because if you said yes and I was being cruel then it would absolutely destroy me, to know I was cruel to you, do you understand? I would totally know, I can read you very well,” she said sternly.

“I know that you can. I swear, Jester, that you’ve never made me do anything I don’t want to do. You’ve frequently surprised me, but I’ve enjoyed everything you’ve ever done to me. I swear that if I don’t think I’ll enjoy whatever you’re proposing that I’ll say no, I would never want to hurt you,” he said softly.

“Even that time that I said that stupid thing about money and you got really mad and put shit on your face and walked away?”

“It was mud. Alright, yes, I was mad. I didn’t say then, but the amount of money you scoffed at then was more than my parents would have seen in their entire lives. But that was an exception.”

“Alright. I believe you.”

“So, what did you want to ask of me?”

“I… wonderedifyou’dwannahavesexwithmeandmaybeFjord!” she kinda squeaked out. It took Caleb a few seconds to go back through that sentence in his perfect memory to parse it, but when he did his jaw dropped.

“You- what? You want- _what_?” he asked.

“I’m sorry! I’ve just been thinking about it for like, a long time!”

Caleb just blinked at her, completely unable to respond. In her nervousness she kept talking.

“I just, I saw your tentacles and stuff when we first met and I thought they looked pretty cool, and I kinda remember this print my mom got as a present from a client from Issylra that had a picture of a lady getting fucked by an octopus and I remember looking at it a _lot_ when I lived there and then I saw all your little tentacles in your mouth and I felt them on my hand and I just couldn’t resist thinking about what they’d feel like on my- I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m a huge freak I can’t believe I’m telling you this!” she said, speaking so fast it was hard to parse. She ducked her head under the water and screamed, covering her face. She stayed under so long Caleb was worried she’d drowned but she finally had to come up, gasping for air.

“Jester, I… I find your desires. Baffling. The idea that you all even want to be near me still astounds me at times, and the thought that you would want to share such an intimate act with me… it is… amazing. I am… I suppose flattered is the word but I cannot think of a stronger version of it right now. I- I would be… honored. To give that to you.”

“But Fjord said it would be cruel since, you know, you don’t…” her eyes darted down and back up. A thought seemed to occur to her. “Unless it’s somewhere else?”

“If it is I haven’t found it yet,” he said, shrugging. “That doesn’t mean that I still wouldn’t enjoy such an act, I enjoy the thought of giving you pleasure very much. I believe I also heard you say something about Fjord?”

“Yeah, I got him to admit he’s also been thinking about it a lot. He likes it when I do stuff to him with my tail so I’m sure you’d make him very happy. He said that the two of us might overwhelm you so you should start with just me, or just him, if you’d prefer, before both of us.”

“Ah. I would. Enjoy that very much.”

“Oh man! Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you said yes, holy shit, are you totally sure?”

“I am, I promise,” he said, smiling at her.

“Do- do you wanna- right now? Or I’ll get Fjord?” she asked, bouncing in place. He allowed his eyes to trail over her body slowly and she shivered in anticipation.

“It would be rude to do this in the bath everyone uses.”

“I can change the water after, I’ve got the spell.”

“Well, maybe next time, we should maybe not add unnecessary complication,” he said. She squealed in happiness and launched out of the bath at full speed. She grabbed a towel and he did as well, drying off as best he could as she hopped in place. When he started moving she ran full tilt, completely naked, up the stairs. He saw her disappear into his room as he crested the stairs. Well it made sense, as she shared a room with Beau. Veth wasn’t in the room so Caleb suspected that Jester may have spoken with her earlier. She was stretched out on the bed looking like she was trying to copy a seductive pose from the cover of one of her books. She grinned at him.

“Jester, I’ve obviously never done this in this body, and I, ah, had limited experience before with this sort of thing, but you absolutely must let me know if I hurt you, alright?”

“I will, Caleb, I promise, and you have to let me know if you aren’t having fun or you feel bad or sad or I hurt you, ok?”

“I promise. Lay down for me?” he asked, a little unsure. He couldn’t believe this was actually happening. She scooted up on the bed so she was propped up on the pillows. They’d gotten a full orc sized bed for him so he could actually stretch out and it was very nice. He positioned himself over her, uncomfortable with how the pose resembled how he ate- well, he supposed he was eating- anyway, his longer arms supported his body and he touched her with his shorter, more normally proportioned arms. He trailed his fingers up the sides of her thighs and pushed her knees gently open as he went onto his elbows for the proper positioning. After a moment of consideration he bid her hook her knees over his shoulders so her legs wouldn’t get tangled in his arms. He looked up at her and her face was flushed with anticipation, her eyes wide and pupils blown. This close he could smell how eager she was.

“Tell me if I need to touch somewhere different, or move faster or slower,” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry, you can ask Fjord, I have no problems telling him what to do,” Jester assured.

“I didn’t think so,” he said. He gently leaned down and kissed her right on her lower belly and she giggled a little. Then he gingerly opened his jaws all the way and placed his mouth near her opening. He made sure his teeth had no chance of piercing her and then he extended his oral tentacles. She immediately cried out in pleasure, she was loud, unsurprisingly. She moaned with each breath as he gently dove into her and circled the pleasurable nub he knew was there. He teased her entrance and then pressed more and more small tentacles into her while still teasing the button there. Then he pulled some of his tendrils out and replaced them with his much longer and thicker tongue. She moaned and her tail was lashing beneath him, so out of curiosity he grabbed it with his belly tentacles and brought it to his lower mouth, licking the end of it. She keened and her hands on his shoulders dug in, so he kept that up.

He pressed his tongue in and out of her, pressing insistently against the spongy textured portion he knew felt the best. She moaned and whined until she finally came, screaming, and he could feel her internal muscles flexing around him. He could taste her juices and he retracted his tongue, absorbing the hot and organic taste. He felt a strange shifting in his belly but he ignored it. Jester was panting before him and he dove back in, licking her through her oversensitivity back into arousal. He suspected it was due to her water genassi heritage but she was still plenty slick for him. He brought her to orgasm again and this time didn’t let up, pushing her straight into a second, and she was screaming with it, he was sure the whole house could hear, the neighbors too, probably. The shifting in his belly grew more insistent, almost painful, and he didn’t have time for his stupid body at the moment. Then he felt something emerge from his lower mouth that was not his tongue. Surprised, he pulled back from Jester and looked down. He looked down and there was a long, thick and blunt tentacle emerging from somewhere in his body through his mouth.

“Huh,” he said, curious, but unable to really talk.

“What?” she asked. He sat up a little, letting her legs back to the bed. Her eyes widened.

“Holy shit. Is that a dick?”

He gently touched it with some of his tentacles and cried out in shock at the unexpected sensation of pleasure pulsed through him. He nodded. Her eyes widened.

“You have GOT to put that in me, I wanna take your… second virginity,” she said, eager. He closed up his mouth.

“I honestly, genuinely think that I did not have that before just now, I felt… something happen.”

She gasped. “I am _the best at sex! I summoned a dick out of nothing! I am A SEX GODDESS!”_ she yelled with extreme enthusiasm.

“I won’t argue with you. But, uh, I’m not sure about using… untested equipment.”

“We can go like, so slow.”

“But, uh, what if you… you get…?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I have spells for that, my momma taught me that one, it’s a cantrip, a variant on thamaturgy, afterwards you just kinda scoop all of the stuff out, it’s kinda gross.”

“I worry that, since I’m so… unusual, I could be… unusual in this way as well.”

“I mean, we could get Fjord in here, I’m like 95% sure that can’t happen to him.”

“Only 95?” he asked, amused.

“Yeah, you never know, magic can do weird stuff. But also, I mean, either you’re gonna do it or not, because practicing on Fjord won’t tell you much about whether you’ve got like some sort of crazy potent man stuff. Waiting won’t matter. And if it happens, I know a spell for that, too,” she said, serious.

“I… I think I want it to be you, Jester, but please, please don’t let me hurt you,” he begged.

“I won’t, I promise. Look, you’re only like a tiny bit thicker than Fjord, I’ll be fine.”

He had already thoroughly stretched her out, so he moved up her body a bit, gingerly positioning himself. This new member was pale like the rest of him, but veiny, ridged, and honestly a little scary looking to him. He very gently lined up with her and slowly began pressing into her, while she moaned and panted, murmuring assents. He gently used his belly tentacles to line her up properly as he pressed in further, until he judged he was as in as he should go. He took a second to figure it out but eventually he figured out how to move his body to thrust in and out of her. His head was at the perfect angle so he leaned down to her breasts as his shorter arms caressed her sides, her thighs, her belly. All the places she was so delightfully soft but with hard muscle underneath. Her hands were clawing his back as he leaned down to place his oral tendrils over one breast than another, licking, sucking, pinching just a little, which she seemed to like. His back tentacles gripped her tail and stroked the sensitive end as his arms reached up to stroke her horns.

“Ah! Yes, yes, fuck, Caleb, ah!”

She shook all over the more he played with her nipples so he focused on them some more, sucking and playing with them as she moaned a little with each exhale, small cries of pleasure that sounded like angels to him. He moved his focus, not wanting to desensitize her in one spot, his instincts taking over a bit as he licked up the side of her neck and over her shoulder. He gently scraped her with his teeth on her shoulder just to tease her but she grinned,

“Yes! Yes, do it, please, I like it,” she said. Gently, very gently, Caleb bit down on her shoulder and she shuddered, laughing breathlessly. Her hands roamed over his shoulders, in his hair, gripping onto him as he continued to drive into her.

The pleasure was mounting in him as he pressed deeper, making her moan. He continued gripping onto her with his teeth as she held his head there forcefully by the back of his neck. Some of his tentacles played with the base of her tail and that was also a very sensitive place, he found. His lower tongue licked and pressed on the nub as he fucked into her. He felt pressure building in him as the pleasure mounted, until he finally released suddenly, followed after a moment by Jester. He paused, still in her for the moment. He closed his mouth and looked at her flushed face.

“Are you satisfied, Jester? I can keep going,” he said.

“Holy shit Caleb, yeah I think I’m satisfied, that was amazing,” she said. He went to pull out and her eyes widened and she gasped a little as he immediately stopped, feeling the same thing. He was still hard and swollen deep inside her, and it felt like the ridges on him had expanded and were locking them together.

“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry,” he said. She shrugged.

“It’s fine, you’re kinda like Fjord, he does that too. Just lay down,” she said. They gingerly repositioned themselves so they were lying on their sides face to face. Jester sighed, seeming content.

“Sorry, I’m sure-”

“I’m super fine, Caleb, I promise, I am so fine, Fjord and I do this all the time,” she insisted.

“Alright.”

“You can say no if it’s like your special thing, but do you think you could wrap me up like you do Veth? I’ve always wanted to try it and it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“I don’t mind, and I’m sure she wouldn’t either,” he said. Jester was of course much larger than Veth but his tentacles were very long. He bid her curl up and he gently cocooned her against him, her knees curled up and pressed on either side of his mouth and her back curled outwards. His dick was mobile and flexible at the base like his other tentacles but hard where it was inside her, so it made positioning easy. He felt her go to sleep and he almost immediately dropped off as well, sleeping deeply. He dreamed of Jester, touching her, tasting her.

He awoke and was alarmed to find his dream had come true. Jester was still thoroughly wrapped in his tentacles, his dick had apparently softened and retreated back to wherever it had come from, but his tongue had emerged and had snaked in between Jester’s thighs and was licking her.

“Jester-!”

“Don’t stop I’m almost there!” she gasped. A little groggy still he obeyed, licking more insistently and pressing into her with the end while the bumpy base ground at just the right spot as she rubbed aimlessly around his mouth, finally coming and tensing against him.

“Jester, I’m sorry,” he said.

“You don’t have to apologize, Caleb, I woke up almost immediately, I could have stopped you. I’m not helpless you know,” she said, firmly grabbing the base of his tongue and squeezing hard, making him jerk a little.

“Alright, ok, I just worry,” he said.

“Make it up to me by fucking me again,” she said.

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. At her insistence he kept her wrapped up and opened her with his tongue before summoning his dick to press firmly into her. He rolled over onto his back for a better angle, his hands pressed to the outside of his belly as Jester writhed wrapped up within. Her moaning and panting was muted but still quite audible. With a groan he couldn’t hold back anymore and he came, and he licked at Jester until she followed after.

“Ok, open up,” she said, and he unfurled like a horrible flower to reveal Jester, and she sat up and stretched, yawning and groaning. “Nothing like some sex to start the day right,” she said.

“I have to agree,” he said, looking up at her in awe. He ran his hands reverently up her thighs and her sides, causing her to giggle as he tickled her.

There as a knock on the door. “Oi! Are you two seriously still fucking in there? It’s time for breakfast you horny shits!” Beau yelled.

“We can’t come out, we’re tied! Send in Fjord with food!” Jester yelled.

“Jester you’re nasty and I respect you for it,” she called back, walking away.

Jester cackled and Caleb was wondering if that should hurt his feelings, but he decided it was probably complementary.

There was another knock in short order. “Can I come in?” Fjord asked.

“Yeah!” Jester said. He opened the door with a tray and shut it behind him, but Caleb saw at least three heads poking around the corner. Fjord took in the sight of them.

“So I’m assuming this was why you were screaming about being goddess of dick or whatever?” Fjord asked.

“Yeah! I’m so hot and sexy he spontaneously grew a dick to fuck me, it was amazing,” she said. Fjord motioned for him to scoot down so Caleb hooked his heels over the footboard and pulled them down the bed while Jester held up her hands and said ‘Wee!’. Fjord positioned one tray on Caleb’s chest, and his lower arms held it steady for Jester as she repositioned to sit cross-legged on him. Fjord sat the other tray in his own lap as he sat by Caleb’s head, carefully making sure not to sit on his hair. He grabbed some sort of breakfast pastry and held it near his mouth and Caleb blinked at him.

“Open up, I’ve seen Jester doing this all this time and I wanna see what the fuss is all about,” he said, smiling down at him gently. Caleb slowly opened his mouth all the way and Fjord put the pastry in. It was very good, and blueberry, his favorite. Jester was absolutely going to town on her pastries. Fjord looked down at him with an incredibly soft look on his face as he fed him a whole host of pastries, pancakes, and fruit.

“I helped cook so there’s meat,” he said, smiling, as he fed Caleb a large sausage.

“It’s super good Fjord!” Jester said around a mouthful of food. Caleb nodded in agreement, his tendrils delicately tracing over the traces of food on Fjord’s fingertips.

“Whew, I’m full,” Jester said, patting her belly. “Open up Caleb!” she said, patting his stomach. He opened his lower mouth and she raked the rest of her plate in. He closed his mouth and swallowed, kind of amazed he could do that around his member. His biological functions made little sense.

“Jester he’s not a trashcan,” Fjord admonished.

“It wasn’t trash! It was just food I couldn’t get to!”

“I saw an orange peel on there!”

“He’s fine! He likes it!” Jester said. Caleb suddenly sympathized with the weasel.

“I am fine, I’ve eaten worse than orange peels,” he said.

Fjord chuckled and put more pancake in his mouth. Jester rubbed his belly, singing to herself.

“Lots of food for Caleb! Lots and lots of food, Caleb likes lots of food, cause it’s really good!”

Caleb was abruptly overwhelmed and tears sprang to his eyes.

“Oh no Caleb are you ok?” Jester exclaimed. He closed his mouth and took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to compose himself.

“I’m fine, I’m- I’m just not- I didn’t ever think anyone would- would be so tender to me ever again, and now there’s two of you, and I don’t deserve it, I really, really don’t, what I’ve done-” he broke off, covering his face, groaning.

“It’s not about deserve, Caleb, it really isn’t,” Fjord said, murmuring lowly. “It’s what we want, and I hope it’s still what you want. When do people ever get what they deserve in this world? If people got what they deserved, children would never suffer and evil people would immediately die and be dragged to hell. You just have to let us be good to you, because that’s what we want, and you don’t get to decide what we want to do, right?”

He hesitantly nodded, hands still over his face.

“It’s ok to take nice things for yourself. If you really have to think about it in terms of deserving, then just think about how fiercely you’ve protected us, how good you are to us and all our friends. We want to be good to you,” Jester said. He moved his hands to look at her and she was making an unbearably soft face at him.

“That’s also true. We don’t care about your past. We know you did some bad things, not all the specifics, but we know it was bad. We also know you’re not that person now, you try so hard to do good in this world,” Fjord said.

“I think I didn’t explain clearly, I was so nervous, and I’m sorry. We don’t just want to fuck you, we want to be with you, Caleb. And that includes food, and dates, and flowers, and talking about feelings and stuff. We both want that so bad with you, but if you don’t want that then you don’t have to, but we can’t have any more sex, sorry, but it would hurt too bad to pretend I don’t feel anything,” Jester said.

Caleb breathed deeply for a moment before wiping his eyes off with his hands. He looked up at them and they both looked so expectant and nervous. They truly cared what his answer was. He nodded slowly.

“I- I feel. Things. I have for a while, that’s why it’s so overwhelming. I don’t know how to handle this.”

“We’ll go super slow,” Jester said.

“I think we may have come on a little strong, this has to be a lot at once.”

“I mean, he did also just grow a dick, that’s pretty crazy.”

“True. Do you want me to leave? Jester kind of can’t, but she can also leave once she’s able.”

“No, no, I’m fine right now. It just kind of hit suddenly.”

“Alright. You still hungry?”

“Almost always,” he said, sighing a bit.

“Well, we can help fix that,” Fjord said. He opened his mouth again and Fjord fed him more pancakes and Jester patted his lower mouth again, and he opened up for her automatically.

“Don’t bite,” she said, and stuck her hands in his mouth and cast her create food spell. It wasn’t particularly good but the food Fjord was giving him was, and it created the sensation that all of it was by transient property. He was usually hidden under a cloak for this process and it was a bit embarrassing to have them watch his belly slowly swell with forty-five pounds of food from the spell. Jester rubbed his belly some more. His stomach gurgled as it slowly swelled beneath Jester, making her giggle as she was lifted upwards a bit. The food part of the spell ended and cool water flowed from her hands, which was nice and refreshing after the sex and crying. His belly grew sloshier as he swallowed more and more water from her hands. Then she pointed up and Caleb assumed she was dumping the rest of the water the spell created on the tree above them. She rubbed his belly more and cooed over him as Fjord fed him the last pancake.

“You look so nice and content Caleb, I kinda want to fuck you like this,” she said.

“Jester, you’re insatiable, let the man rest,” Fjord admonished, chuckling.

“I’m fine with that, uh, as long as you don’t expect me to move around much,” he said hesitantly.

“Good for you Caleb, setting boundaries!” Jester praised.

“I’ll see myself out then,” Fjord said.

“You can stay if you like,” Caleb said. Fjord smiled.

“I think I would like.”

Caleb hesitantly crabwalked up the bed and Fjord got up behind Jester. Caleb slowly rotated his dick a bit, thrusting slightly, which made Jester gasp and moan, and then he got his tongue back on her, and his belly tentacles wrapped around her, as she was sitting on his belly like she was mounted on a horse, her legs not under her but splayed wide across him. Fjord was between his bent legs, caressing her from behind, his wide hands cupping her breasts as he kissed her neck and collarbone. The pleasure built up in him again but he made sure that Jester came once more, his hands on her thighs holding her steady as he pulsed in her. She lay back with a sigh on Fjord and Caleb’s bent knees.

“Fjord I can’t wait for you to try this,” she said. She gingerly leaned forward over his belly, laying her head on it. She listened to it growl for a moment. “This is very soothing, I could sleep like this, we should try this at night,” she said.

“I’m pretty excited for my turn,” Fjord said, looking at Caleb with a smile.

Caleb waited for Jester’s say-so on when exactly they would be fornicating again. He went about his normal activities, studying, some with Essek and some with Veth, some by himself.

Jester wandered into his room a few days after, a mischievous look on her face.

“Hey Cay-leb,” she said, drawing out his name in that adorable way she had.

“Yes, Jester?”

“I had a thought, now that you have a dick again, have you tried playing by yourself? I mean, we could probably have sex like, most of the times that you’re horny, but sometimes I’m tired, you know, so you should know how to take care of yourself.”

Caleb blinked. He honestly hadn’t thought about it. He’d been so used to not having any such desires or way to manifest them that it hadn’t occurred to him. He hadn’t really felt himself being… especially desirous of sex. He had idly wondered when Jester would return to his bed, possibly with Fjord, but other than a sort of general anticipation he hadn’t felt any sort of sweeping desire.

“I hadn’t really felt the urge, honestly.”

“Well, you should know that’s an option.”

“Alright, thank you for reminding me, I may look into that.”

“How?”

“How?” he repeated, confused.

She grinned at him. “How are you gonna do it? I wanna see,” she said, sitting in the chair at his desk and crossing her legs, looking at him wickedly. He blinked at her.

“I… ok,” he said, looking down, embarrassed for some reason.

“Are you ok?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, I’m just…”

“A little shy, Caleb?” she asked, grinning.

“Yeah, a little.”

“It’s ok, I like it when you’re awkward, I think it’s cute, you’re so easy to get all flustered, even more than Fjord, it’s just the best,” she said, her tail lashing happily behind her.

He wasn’t sure if he was capable of blushing but his face certainly felt hot. He undressed and felt even more embarrassed as Jester just continued to sit there watching, not taking her clothes off. He sat back on the bed and allowed his dick to emerge from his lower mouth, the tentacles attached to his sides all splayed open. He hesitantly stroked the sensitive end of it with his smaller hands, since they didn’t have claws or long spidery fingers like his longer arms. It felt good, it was pleasurable. He looked to Jester who was watching with interest.

“Is it sensitive on the base?” she asked. He stroked down and shook his head.

“No, it feels like a regular tentacle after this end part here,” he said, indicating the seven or so inch end section that had some sort of slight horizontal ridges circling it that would swell and lock it into place. He didn’t know what the purpose of that was since he didn’t come in the traditional male sense. He hadn’t felt anything actually emerge, and there wasn’t any hole on the end. He didn’t seem to have any balls or something like that, so he was reasonably certain he was incapable of reproducing, which suited him fine. He wasn’t certain what his children would look like but he wouldn’t want to subject anyone else to what had happened to him.

“Keep stroking Caleb, you’re getting your constipated look you get when you overthink stuff,” Jester gently admonished. Caleb jerked out of his musing and continued to stroke the end of his dick, enjoying the novel sensation. He’d done this as a human but that felt like so long ago. He had a sudden inspiration and made a quick calculation before adjusting so he could hunch over a bit and take the end of his dick in his mouth. Jester gasped as he groaned a little, that was so much better. He looked up at her and her mouth was open as he slowly moved up and down on the dick, being careful not to bite it.

“Holy shit Caleb, Fjord is gonna be so jealous.”

He winked at her, feeling bold, and held the base steady as he moved his head, the pleasurable sensations causing the long base to twitch and flex. It was emerging from the top of his lower mouth and he was able to lean back some, it was surprisingly long. He wrapped his oral tentacles around it inside his mouth and stroked and squeezed it as he sucked. His mind went to Fjord, thinking about doing this to him, and that did excite him. He worked out what felt good, thinking about what he would do to Fjord, and his small gasps and grunts got more frequent until he clenched up, curling over himself, all his tentacles drawing in. He made a choking sound as he swelled up in his own throat where he’d jammed his dick deep down in there. He pulled on it a bit and gagged more and it hurt, it was thoroughly locked in, luckily he could breathe through his tentacles or he may have accidentally killed himself in the most embarrassing way possible.

Jester burst into laughter as she realized what happened. “Oh, oh no, poor Caleb, are you stuck?”

He looked at her balefully. She collapsed off her chair onto the floor cackling. He would maybe have laughed too if he could. He was terribly embarrassed and curled over on his side into a small ball, wrapping himself in his tentacles as he frequently did to sleep. Despite being long limbed he could somehow fold in on himself like a collapsed marionette to become almost a total ball and wrap up completely in his back and side tentacles.

“Oh no, Caleb, it’s ok, I’m not laughing at you like that I promise,” she said, giggling. He snapped his fingers and Frumpkin appeared in her arms purring so she’d know he wasn’t mad.

“Ok, Caleb, I’ll leave you alone to be shy, thank you for being so sweet for me, that was so much fun,” she said, giggling. She flounced off holding Frumpkin. He was pretty much stuck so he went into his familiar’s vision. She took him upstairs and set him on her dresser facing her bed, and Frumpkin sat contentedly. He watched her get on her bed, then look at him and wink.

“Are you watching me, Caleb?” she said quietly, grinning. Caleb, inhabiting his cat, was so startled he moved his head back a bit, and she grinned wider. He watched, entranced, as she took off her pantaloons and pulled from beside her bed some sort of gel, not that horrible hair gel of course. She put it on her hands and put them under her dress, touching herself and playing, looking at Caleb. He could see her hands moving quickly in small jerking motions as she panted and moaned, her other hand coming up to pinch her nipples through her dress.

“Oh, Caleb, see, it’s so much fun, isn’t it?” she panted out. Caleb in Frumpkin had frozen solid. Her tail curled up to slowly get in on the action, pushing inside, the heart shaped end no doubt providing an interesting texture. She groaned and cried out, hips jerking upward before she collapsed, panting. She grinned at him and he was so embarrassed he exited Frumpkin vision and, blushing, started to move his tentacles to squeeze his dick deep in his throat until he climaxed again.

After that, Caleb started a… scientific endeavor. A lot of empirical testing revealed that the time for his ridges to go down on his dick was the longest if he didn’t come again while locked, it didn’t stack. Coming a second time did add some time, but it overlapped if done within five minutes after the first time, so the end result was a shorter time. After two the diminishment in time was also present. It broke down as follows:

Times Climaxed Average Time Until Genital Ridge Relaxation After Last Orgasm

1 37 minutes

2 25 minutes

3 17 minutes

4 16 minutes

It took an average of three minutes to achieve subsequent orgasms, so the result was that after three there was no longer any benefit to further orgasms in terms of time reduction, orgasms of course having an intrinsic benefit. He also observed that his first orgasm was the most intense, but subsequent ones were usually about equal to each other in intensity and still quite pleasurable.

Jester came to him two days after the last time and Caleb realized he may have gotten a bit caught up in this experiment.

“I was trying to, you know, ease into things, since I feel like the first time was a bit intense since you cried and I don’t want that, unless you like that. I’ve made Fjord cry during sex, like a good crying, it was great, I’ll show you how. Anyway, I wanted you to like, adjust to your new dick and the idea of us doing sexy stuff together and stuff. So how are you feeling?”

“Ah. I’ve… definitely adjusted to the dick. Uh. I’m still wrapping my head around the other stuff but I’m fine, I believe. You’ve been very patient, Jester, thank you.”

“I know, I’ve been like, so excited to do more stuff with you, and so is Fjord, so are you ready, you think? You promise?”

“I promise. I want to… explore.”

“Alright, then it’s time to play. Come help me get Fjord all clean,” she directed. Confused, he followed her to the basement, where Fjord was already naked and tied up for some reason, kneeling near the grate that led to the sewers. Since they had experience wandering around sewers and coming up places the grate was tiny, but did open. They had a contraption they would place over the grate that was like a large upside down bucket with a hole that turned it into a toilet, so they didn’t have to throw filth out the windows like they did in other places.

“I’ve already had him clean himself really good, but he can only get so deep, so I’m going to help him and I thought you’d assist,” Jester said. Ah, that kind of cleaning.

“Alright. Uh, what if someone comes in?”

“That’s what the little plaque with the dick on it is for, everyone else already knows, they kept walking in on us so I made it. I didn’t mention it to you since I was kinda hoping you’d walk in on us, and then I could be like ‘You don’t have to leave,’ and stuff,” she said, adopting her ‘sexy’ voice and wiggling her eyebrows, then grinning.

“Didn’t that happen in one of the boo-”

“No! Shut up!” she said, adjusting the rope harness Fjord was trussed up in. It was clearly some sort of special sex rope, it was dark green and soft looking. It looked nice on his skin. He noticed the ropes over his belly were very loose while it was tight everywhere else, which seemed intentional. He was kneeling with his butt resting back on his heels, and his legs were bound to stay bent like that, but they weren’t bound together, though there was a loose rope connecting them there was plenty of slack.

“Help hold him upright, crouch in front of him for me, that’s it,” she directed. Fjord shivered as Caleb knelt on the stone floor before him. She sat behind Fjord on a mat and reached for his butt.

“He’s got a plug in, a good fat one that keeps him nice and full, we found a whole sex shop in the fancypants section, it was amazing. So, Caduceus taught me that if you’re careful you can create water up in someone slowly, and Fjord really likes it, don’t you?” she asked, grabbing something back there and wiggling it. Fjord ducked his head but nodded. “He said it was for medical purposes but we’ve been using it for sex, obviously. I just chose the tip of that fun toy in Fjord as the origin of the water since I can visualize it well, and it works just fine.”

Caleb nodded slowly. He’d heard of such things done as a medical procedure, and to a lesser degree as a sex practice. Caleb had read interesting books in his youth.

“Your job is to keep him nice and relaxed while I do it, ok?” Jester said. Caleb nodded.

“Relax, Fjord,” Caleb parroted lowly. He placed his larger hands around Fjord’s chest, holding him steady, as his shorter hands touched his chest and belly. He stroked across the ropes and wrapped some of his tentacles around Fjord as well, which he seemed to enjoy. Jester cast Create Water and water begun to appear in Fjord, presumably. He knelt there and Caleb gently rubbed his belly. He heard the water gurgling in Fjord’s belly as it inched further into him. Soon his belly was subtly swelling as the rumbling increased.

“You’re doing so good Fjord, you were so good being quiet too, you can talk if you like for this part,” Jester praised. Fjord was panting and groaning a bit as his belly grew but Caleb held him steady. He unraveled his belly tentacles and let them tenderly caress his belly, sides, down between his legs. Fjord was hard and Caleb gently wrapped around him, giving him a few strokes. He groaned, panting more.

“I feel so full,” Fjord said.

“I think you can take more,” Jester said, one hand coming from behind to touch him. He groaned as his belly swelled taunt, bloating out further and further. He was blushing from apparent embarrassment.

“You’re ok Fjord, you’re doing so good, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Jester is just filling you up inside, all the water is just blowing your belly up, it’s ok,” he said. Caleb opened his mouth a bit and licked Fjord’s growing tummy. He was growing much bigger, his belly looked very heavy, hanging full and taunt before him like a bloated waterskin. He groaned, shifting about, so Caleb resolved to distract him, wrapping around his member and giving it slow strokes, making him give little thrusts even as Caleb’s hands held him still.

“Fuck, I’m getting really tight here Jessie,” he said.

“You can take it Fjord, I believe in you. You gotta go until the ropes are tight, that’s the rule,” she said in delight.

His belly looked to be growing quite tight and Jester bid him to sit back on his heels. His belly sloshed and he groaned at the weight. She directed Caleb behind him and after some finagling he had the man in his lap. He wrapped Fjord in his tentacles, gently rubbing and massaging his tummy so the water would be encouraged to move up further. It was heavy and warm but it still had some give to it. He kept rubbing as Fjord swelled further. The ropes were still fairly loose across his belly.

“Jessie, Jessie!” Fjord keened.

“A little more Fjord, you’re doing great. Here, are you thirsty? I’ll give you a little break down there,” she asked, sitting in front of him. She stuck her fingers in his mouth and Fjord closed around them, suckling on them as water emerged. He swallowed the cool, clean water down. Caleb continued to rub him as he groaned from all the water. His belly gurgled further until he pulled back from her fingers, and she moved her hand back down to touch his lower belly. He moaned as the water started flowing into him again down there. Caleb supported his distending gut with his tentacles, gently.

“Th- the pressure is getting really intense Jessie.”

“You can handle a little pressure, Fjord.”

“I feel so heavy. I’m so full, I can’t hold any more.”

“Just a little more.”

“I’m gonna pop Jessie,” he said, straining.

“You always say that but I’ve never done it.”

He moaned some more. Caleb got the sense some of it was for show, and part of this game was his pleading. Caleb sent some tentacles to distract him, one pressing firmly onto his perineum and another grasping the base of the toy and moving it around to put pressure on his prostate. Fjord gasped, keening. She switched to his mouth again, pushing her fingers in even as he groaned.

“Keep on drinking Fjord, you like the water, you know you do,” she said sweetly. Caleb reached around with his smaller hand to gently stroke Fjord’s throat down his chest and making a slow circle around his stomach. He repeated the motion as Fjord kept drinking, making little whimpering sounds in between swallows. His tentacles wrapped around his dick, squeezing and stroking it as his hips twitched, making his belly slosh. Fjord choked a little and Jester pulled her fingers out and moved back to rest her hand on his lower belly and he groaned again, hiccupping a couple times. Caleb put his hand over Fjord’s lower jaw, gently gripping his face, and tilted his head back until it rested on Caleb’s shoulder, him looking at the ceiling. Fjord swallowed rapidly as Caleb continued slowly stroking with open hand across his exposed throat, down his chest, to his belly that was comfortably filling out the ropes now. Fjord pushed against his hand and Caleb let him go so he could look at Jester, moving the hand to idly play with his nipple.

“J-Jester I- I gotta-” Fjord said, then broke off, sounding embarrassed. What did he need? Caleb noted how his thighs were clenching together. Ah. He looked to Jester to see what she would say, and felt Fjord’s distress at the borderline evil look on her face.

“Oh, poor Fjord, too much water?” she said false sweetly. “But if you do that, we’ll lose progress, and you don’t want that. You’ll just have to hold it.”

“But-”

“If you wanna go, you can, but I’ll have to loosen the ropes as punishment,” she said sternly. Fjord groaned and went quiet. “If you have an accident, you’ll have to hold this water for a very long time, and I’ll keep adding to it,” she said. Caleb genuinely was glad Jester was focused on Fjord at this moment. Fjord wiggled back and forth in his lap, panting, his hands tied behind his back clenching. Caleb decided to help him out and looped a tentacle around the base of his cock and cinched it tight. He yelped a bit but he seemed to relax just slightly.

“Aww, you’re so sweet Caleb,” Jester praised, and he immediately blushed again. “Here, distract him a bit, make him feel good,” she said. He started stroking Fjord in earnest, slicked with some more lube Jester slathered over Fjord’s dick for him. Caleb got the idea and kept a good tight hold on the base of his dick. Fjord clenched and unclenched every muscle in his body in response to his strokes, and in response to something on his face Jester said ‘stop’ and Caleb froze. Fjord groaned in apparent pain at the denial. Jester played stop and go with him as she continued to cast.

“Jester, Jester have mercy,” Fjord pleaded the third time he was brought so close to the edge and then made to stop.

“Do you want to stop playing Fjord?”

“No…” he muttered morosely.

“Be good for me, I’ll make you feel so good.”

Caleb was now getting a feel for what it felt like when Fjord was about to come, his tentacles were wrapped over all the places that drew up tight as it was about to happen, so he was able to take that over for Jester so she could focus on touching Fjord, kissing his belly, sucking on his nipples a bit, biting him a little. Fjord’s sac was heavy beneath him from all the times he’d been denied and Caleb mercilessly played with it. Fjord was shaking after the fifth denial, past words, lost in it.

Fjord’s squirming in Caleb’s lap got more pronounced despite Caleb’s assistance and he was whining in definite pain and pleasure. His belly even sounded in pain as it gurgled under Jester’s hand. Caleb’s larger hands were holding his thighs open even as they reflexively tried to clench tighter. Jester paused, rubbing his belly, which was now pressing into the ropes, humming in consideration. Slowly she rubbed his lower belly and Fjord whined, clenching tighter, trying so desperately to be good. Jester visibly debated not letting him.

“Ok, Fjord, you did so good, Caleb set him down over the grate,” she said. Caleb moved as quickly as he could without jostling him too much and set him over the grate, still tied but carefully positioned so the ropes weren’t in the way, and Fjord heaved a deep and long sigh as relief found him. He went so loose from relief that he almost sagged over but Caleb kept him upright. They moved over to some more mats by the wall. She untied his hands and retied them to a ring embedded in the wall that Caleb had not noticed before, positioning him on his back and his belly jiggled before them, still pressing into the ropes. His ankles were still attached near his hips so he was presenting in a very vulnerable position. Caleb could see the base of the plug now, a simple black color, it appeared to be glass.

“Ok, I’m gonna pull it out and Caleb, I want you to plug him up,” she said. Caleb’s eyes widened as he looked to Fjord and he seemed out of it but ok with the idea. Caleb lined his dick up up and she gently pulled the plug and he swiftly plunged in as Fjord struggled to hold it. Fjord groaned and Caleb leaned over his belly, his tentacles caressing the distended flesh. Caleb slowly thrust his dick and out, his tentacles wrapped firmly around Fjord’s dick, Fjord’s belly rippling slightly with every motion. Caleb held each of his knees to keep him in place, slowly moving in and out, plunging deep, feeling all the water inside. Jester slowly rubbed his belly, plucking at the ropes and giving it a small shake every once in a while to make Fjord gasp.

“You both did so good, you can come whenever you want,” Jester said magnanimously. 

He thrust more until Fjord came with a groan, Caleb wrapping a thick tentacle firmly around the base for him to knot into, and then Caleb locked in Fjord. Fjord giggled a little as Jester drew a little circle on his belly with her paints to ritual cast what looked like Purify Food and Drink to Caleb. She cast with a burst of pink energy and grinned.

“There, now all the water is super clean, you could drink it if you wanted,” she said.

Then she kept slowly rubbing Fjord’s belly and he gave a contented sounding sigh. She untied him while Caleb was still in him, Caleb lifting his somewhat unresponsive form up for some of the knots as he flopped around. Luckily Caleb had plenty of limbs to hold him. Caleb lay him down again after.

Suddenly Fjord’s belly began to glow. He looked down in alarm and up at them.

“Jester?” he asked.

“I’m not doing it!” she said, lifting her hands.

The light was deep green and matched his green belly, and it seemed to be coming from within. He was panting and groaning, clutching his belly, and Caleb smelled the sea around them and somehow heard crashing waves. Fjord made a weird sound and Caleb could see his belly moving, he placed a hand on it and definitely felt movement within. Something was writhing and moving within him as they all held their hands on him. He groaned as his belly gurgled and looked to be swelling further before their eyes.

“I- I think this is the Wildmother, aahh fuck, shit that feels weird, hahaha,” he kind of chuckled. He made a sort of choking sound and vines emerged from his mouth.

“Holy shit!” Jester said.

Fjord made a thumbs up and didn’t seem to be panicking. Caleb kind of was but he was locked into Fjord and couldn’t back up.

_Did you think you could enter deep within my lovely new charge and I wouldn’t notice?_ A voice in his mind whispered. Caleb’s eyes widened. _I can’t reshape your body into what it once was without reversing all that you have learned since. The crystal reshaped your mind into something incompatible with humanity. You would forget your friends and this life you have lived these last years. I don’t think you want that._

_…no,_ Caleb said, surprising himself.

_But I can purge the corruption of your flesh, I am more powerful than then the influence of the Chained One, for now, while you have defeated his cult and he remains sealed. You will hunger and crave living flesh, but that is the nature of this body. But you will be able to be sated, you will not hunger even with a full belly. You will no longer feel undue rage, you will not fear losing control._

_With greatest respect, and I also thank you for coming to Fjord’s aid when he needed, nothing is ever free, my lady._

_A smart one. You don’t have to worship me, but this requires remaking you into something that is part of the natural order to bring you under my dominion. It will hurt, to be reborn. You will no longer be a mutated human but a new species, whole and hale, with all that implies. You will take a place in the web of life. I would charge you to consume and purify beings corrupted by dark magics, unnatural aberrations and monstrosities, as you have been doing, to make it new and usable. Like the mushroom breaks down the log, or the vulture the carcass. Their flesh is poison to others but to you it shall be succulent and hearty._

_That sounds more than generous, thank you._

_Then I name you a Hallower, first of your kind._

Vines emerged from the center of Fjord’s belly and Jester squeaked in alarm, but there was no blood.

“What’s happening?” she asked, alarmed.

“It’s ok Jester, I promise, the Wildmother is giving a gift,” Caleb said.

Fjord nodded and gave an ok sign before returning his hands to his belly which was still swelling and moving from the vines within. The vines emerging from his belly reached for Caleb so he leaned more fully over Fjord and they tangled with his tentacles, reaching into his belly as he opened his mouth for them. They plunged deeper into his body, through his internal walls, and then seemed to retract, pulling him closer to Fjord until their bellies were flush, but the vines kept pulling. It was very painful and Caleb was gritting his teeth, hissing. Caleb made eye contact with Fjord and he nodded.

“Jester, don’t be alarmed,” Caleb said. He opened his mouth and his side tentacles started pulling Fjord into his body.

“Holy fuck,” Jester said quietly, eyes wide.

Caleb carefully bent Fjord’s knees toward his chest as best he could and slowly started working him in. He tasted like the sea. He started moving his dick in Fjord just a bit and he moaned appreciatively. Fjord’s lower half slipped into his belly and Fjord curled up smaller as Caleb’s two lower arms gently grabbed his shoulders and pressed him in. Caleb sat back to have gravity help and with a groan Fjord disappeared into his belly. He continued fucking him and felt him writhing around in him, even as he felt more vines filling his belly. He suspected that the Wildmother was putting him in another cocoon in there. He groaned and put his hands on his belly, still moving his dick in Fjord until he came deep within him. He sat back panting, his arms wrapped around his belly protectively. He twitched and panted as his belly filled and stretched painfully as more and more vines visibly writhed within him.

“Wow. The Wildmother cockblocked me. And you ate Fjord.”

“He’s fine, I’m quite sure of it. I am happy to satisfy you, Jester,” Caleb said, smiling.

“In a sec. What the shit was that?”

“I’m not sure about Fjord, but the Wildmother spoke to me. She offered to free me from the influence of Tharizdun, and I accepted.”

“Oh man, that’s so cool!”

Caleb lay back and Jester somewhat roughly sat on his face, and he found her wet and ready for him. He opened his mouth and proceeded to eat her out until she was wholly spent, her thighs clenching hard enough around his head he felt his skull creak. His oral tentacles and thick tongue plunged into her, pleasuring her as she ground down against him, her hands in his hair. He ignored the deep ache in his belly and came again in Fjord inside him. They lay down and she curled around his belly, rubbing it.

“How long do you think he’ll be in there?” she asked.

“No idea. Hopefully not too long. I think he’s asleep so it won’t seem like long to him, but we need him around.”

“We do, for sure,” Jester said, patting his belly.

Caleb heaved himself upstairs to sit under the sunlight jars by the tree, basking on his back, making some sort of educated guess the vines growing in him may like the sun. He still felt them ticking him from the inside as the whole ball shifted. The rest of the crew soon joined him, Jester having apparently explained. Veth poked his side dubiously.

“It seems bigger than Fjord-sized, he’s still pretty skinny,” she said.

“I think he’s in another cocoon, and the walls are quite thick,” Caleb said. He made a slight displeased sound as the aching grew in his belly. The pain had been consistent but not unmanageable.

“This shit is weird as fuck,” Beau said.

“I’m so glad that the Wildmother is helping you, and that you accepted, Caleb,” Caduceus said.

They all hung out with him and the ache spread, and Caleb noticed black veins slowly expanding from his belly and stretching out over his body. It looked vaguely like thin vines or roots. The veins visibly pulsed and were raised and moving, he could feel them spreading, and the vines spread deeper within him, moving from surrounding Fjord in his belly to occupying the entirety of his strange body. He burned like he was on fire as they spread further and further, but he tried to keep his reaction to a minimum, he didn’t want to worry the others. The vines reached his fingertips and abruptly Caleb knew he was finished. He sat up and unceremoniously, with some difficulty, horked out the cocoon, which was just the soft kelp core that had grown around Fjord, no more black vines. They unraveled Fjord and he sat up, this time he was naked unlike the last, and shook himself a little. Caleb crawled away from them as they called to him, his ears filled with a pulse so powerful he could scarcely hear. He curled up on himself into a tight ball again as pain screamed in his body, all his tentacles wrapped tightly around himself as it felt like he was dissolving from the inside. He couldn’t help the guttural screaming noise that emanated from him, and with one final pulse the pain ended and he collapsed, all the tension leaving his body.

“Caleb! Are you ok?” Jester said frantically. He opened his eyes to see her hovering near him, looking like she wanted to touch him but was afraid to hurt him.

“Ow,” he said quietly.

“Does it still hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, taking a big breath to take stock. All his normal limbs and tentacles seemed to be in their proper places. He shook his whole body in a shudder and then he felt something that was different. He looked around and found a long tail emerging from his backside. It was somewhat thick near the base and tapered off to a point, somewhat like a lizard’s tail. It was smooth skinned like the rest of him. He blinked at it. Interesting. He looked at Fjord, standing there naked, momentarily forgetting this out of concern for Caleb.

“That was weird,” Fjord said.

“Understatement,” Beau said. Caleb stood and stretched his body, groaning.

“The pattern is very pretty Caleb, and I love your tail!” Jester said.

“Thank you Jester,” Caleb replied, still feeling embarrassed at her compliments. They went downstairs and put on clothes to talk. Caleb gave them a rundown of what the Wildmother said.

“That’s so crazy!” Jester said.

“You get new powers like every time you have sex,” Veth joked.

“I hope not, that was a bit dramatic,” Caleb sighed.

“That’s one way to put it,” Beau said, rolling her eyes.

“What did she name you again?” Jester asked.

“A ‘Hallower’.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Jester said.

After that incident they decided to take another little break from any further sex activity to recover.

Veth joined him in his bed that night. Now that Yeza was no longer with them Veth mostly slept in his room with him when they were at their Xhorhaus. More specifically wrapped in his belly tentacles, like they usually did, with the exception of those times when he was hungry. They both liked it. It was weird. They didn’t care.

He remembered the first time he had offered to do this. They had been sleeping close together for a while, they had gotten close quickly, just two creatures shunned by society. They were shivering in the woods, freezing to death, really, but Veth- Nott, then, more than Caleb. He had her wrapped close in his cloak but she was still cold. The weird thing, one of many, about his body was that he was somehow usually a cool temperature on the outside but warm on the inside. He wasn’t providing much warmth like this to her. He remembered asking if she trusted him, and she’d shivered out a yes. He usually kept his side tentacles wrapped around his body, only opening them to eat something large. He had shifted around and unfurled his tentacles, and she hadn’t struggled at all. Her trust warmed his heart. He very carefully wrapped her up in his tentacles, pressing her close to his body where he was incredibly warm. He was able to make sure air got in there to her while keeping it mostly sealed, and it didn’t take long for her to stop shivering. She had sighed in contentment and asked about him. He had replied that he felt perfectly fine and very warm, and it was true. He was happy that he could protect her, always. He felt a great and abiding tenderness for her that had only grown.

Now in the Xhorhaus he gently ran his hand over the outside of his wrapped-up tentacles.

“Caleb,” Nott said.

“Yes?”

“Have you ever thought about eating me?”

“I have worried about it, yes, that I might accidentally do so in my sleep or something.”

“Have you ever wanted to do it?”

“You know, I have told you, that I have been almost always hungry. Bouts of hunger have hit me at bad times, while I have you, ah, temptingly close.”

“I kinda wanna try it,” she said.

Caleb blinked at the empty room.

“Uh. Why?”

“I dunno, just curious. You ate Fjord and I was just kind of thinking about it. You know you can spit me right back up if you want, and you mentioned you have an upper and lower stomach, and there’s no acid in the upper.”

It was true he had this ability. “Well. If you are sure, Veth. I’m not sure how much air there is.”

“Yeah, I just bored and it sounded fun. I’ll knock when I want out.”

“Your idea of fun is strange. Very well.”

He slowly opened up his second mouth and gently pressed Veth inside, obviously not biting down on her. He held her in his mouth for a second to see if she changed her mind, and sensing no resistance he swallowed. He felt pleasantly full and he was dismayed to discover the sensation of her moving about in him was more pleasant than he would have liked. He hadn’t been able to focus on the feeling with Fjord, so overwhelmed with shock and pain. More evidence of his monstrous nature, presumably, even if he was technically a ‘natural’ monster now. She was still moving around but didn’t knock. He felt her sort of poking around at the walls, exploring. At one point she forced her head out, and he let her, though his internal muscles were more than strong enough to keep her in, and she took a breath before returning to whatever she was looking for. He cast dancing lights and swallowed them for her to see with, amused at the light dully glowing through his pale skin. It looked like when they would candle eggs at the farm, he could see the veins that marked him from the Wildmother clearly highlighted as his glowing belly squirmed. He felt something shift in his internal processes again, responding to outside stimuli. He got the sense, somehow, that the Wildmother had increased his body’s ability to respond to his needs. He hoped he wasn’t about to hurt Veth. He felt an internal tentacle that wasn’t his dick, which was new, reaching for her but he stopped it. He felt her grab it gently and pull it toward her, a signal that she was ready and willing for whatever it wanted. He let the tentacle do as it wanted and it found what felt like her bellybutton and without warning plunged in. He heard her yelp and she jerked a bit but she didn’t keep screaming. After a moment Caleb sensed what was happening and tapped his belly. Veth poked her head out.

“I was looking around in here just to see if there was anything weird. I don’t know what that tentacle was about,” she said.

“Hold your breath,” Caleb said. She held it. And held it. Her eyes widened.

“Oh, that’s so weird!”

“It’s like a babe in the womb, an umbilical cord, you can breathe without breathing,” Caleb said, amazed.

“If we have to go underwater again, and we didn’t have spells or something, we could do it like this, because you can breathe underwater. You could breathe for me.”

“And you wouldn’t be afraid.”

“I wouldn’t. Would it be weird if I slept here?”

“Not any weirder than our usual fare.”

“True, at this point we’ve gone so far beyond weird that it’s just pointless to consider it at this point.”

She ducked back in and settled inside. He rolled over gently on his side and curled over her. He let his little friend out in the morning and she was still so deeply asleep that he had to gently slap her awake, and she was groggy for a while after, but once she woke up she said that it was very restful.

After that he saw Veth and Jester whispering more than usual and braced, with fondness, for whatever scheme or prank they were coming up with.

Veth came to his room again, earlier in the evening than she usually went to sleep. He was reading and looked up as she entered, nodding to her distractedly.

“Caleb?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Can we talk?” she asked. He marked his place and looked at her as she sat upon the end of the bed.

“I’ve been thinking. A lot. About a lot of things. I talked to Yeza, and Jester, and remarkably they sort of said the same thing.”

“What have you been thinking about?”

“I… I mean. We haven’t really talked about what I said, when I changed back.”

“Ah. I… I will… take that to mean whatever you want me to, Veth. You know we are close, family.”

“I didn’t mean it in a family way,” she said quietly.

He looked at her, sitting there, wringing her dress and looking away. “I understand having… feelings you think you shouldn’t have.”

“You do?”

“…when I was a boy,” he started, and her eyes widened. He almost never spoke on his time as a human, for good reason. “I knew I had… desires, for men and women. And such things aren’t encouraged in a village like mine. When I went to school… with Astrid… and Eodwulf…” he shrugged.

“Wow! How is this the second time that a couple has wanted to bone you? I mean, obviously you’re amazing and everyone should want to- but it’s still crazy that’s happened twice!”

He was blushing again. “We are getting off topic.”

“Oh! Right. Uh. I’ve, uh, I’ve had feelings for you for a long time. Maybe since we met. They’ve waxed and waned, but it’s been there all along, in the background.”

“I see. I… I have always held great fondness for you, you are the closest person in this world to me. I have love for you. But I… I have never allowed myself to consider any possibility, at first because I was and still am to a large degree an absolute wreck of anything resembling a functional creature, much less a being capable of love. And as I have put together the pieces of myself and found the tiniest measure of healing amongst these people… you revealed yourself as a married woman. I had… sometimes. Late at night, on the road, very early on. There was some part deep, deep inside me that yearned for someone to care about me. To touch my face with a tender hand. Someone for me to cherish. And I felt such fondness for you, I had… vague notions. Just a passing thought, quickly squelched, that maybe we could care about each other, like that. Because you were so kind to me, when I did not and do not deserve such treatment. But you are a married woman, so I have tried to squelch such feelings.”

She stared at him, amazed. “The only object to you is that I’m married?”

“What else would there be? That you were a goblin? How could I possibly judge you for your looks, Veth?”

“I… well.”

“You always have felt much more wretched and horrible than you actually were. I think your goblin form was pretty, really. I prefer this form only because you are happier in it, and you are beautiful now because you are happier. You are you.”

“I… I don’t know what to say. I’ll turn that around on you and say that I’ve always found you handsome. You wanted someone to touch you gently? That’s what you did for me. At the lowest point in my life, you were there for me. You gave me hope when I had none, and you worked tirelessly to save me, when no one but my husband and my own child have ever shown me that sort of devotion. I meant it when I said you are the second love of my life. Not second greatest, just second, full stop.”

“Your husband is a lucky man.”

“What I came here to say is that I had a chat with him. I wanted to find out your feelings before I told you. I confessed everything I told you, all that I felt and feel. I felt like the worst wife in the world. We had a long talk, it turns out he’s learned a thing or two, and he suggested what I didn’t have the courage to ask. I mean, if you and Jester and Fjord can be three… why couldn’t we be four?”

Caleb’s eyes widened. “I- really?”

“Yeah. I talked with Jester, because I didn’t know what to do with everything I was feeling. Yeza said it was ok but I didn’t know if you would be ok with it, and I meant to ask you the other night but somehow just ended up asking you to eat me, it was the first thing that popped into my head, I don’t know. Uh. But I talked with Jester and she told me she was pretty sure you ‘had the hots for me’ and that I ‘should totally make a move’. So I. Did.”

“This is the move?” he asked, attempting a joke.

“Yep, this is it,” she said, looking up at him.

“I… I would… I’m not sure why you would want me, but if I can make you happy then I would… love that. We have already made many declarations. You have my loyalty, my love. You have me, if you want me.”

“I do.”

“Then I am yours, for all I am worth.”

“You’re worth the world to me, Caleb.”

She moved forward and they embraced, and that night he just held her in his arms.

He and Veth hung out a lot, even more than they usually did, and openly cuddled. After a couple days Jester and Fjord came to them as they were lounging in the Happy Room.

“Hey, we should probably have a chat,” Jester said, flinging herself into the couch opposite Veth and Caleb.

“Ok, sure,” Caleb said.

“So, I have a little experience with this, just from observation and asking my momma, but there are a lot of people who come by the Chateau who are in little groups of three or more,” she said, gesturing vaguely to all of them. “The most important thing is to talk about our feelings a lot,” she said.

“Oh boy,” Fjord muttered as Caleb looked pained.

“Listen we’re all adults and we’re gonna use our grown-up words,” Jester said. “I’ll go first. Caleb, I’m super happy that you and Veth are all sweet with each other and together now, and I just wanted to confirm you’re still interested in Fjord and I,” she said. Caleb nodded.

“Yes, I am, I- I care about all of you. I know that much.”

“But…?” she prompted.

“No but, it’s just- hard, for me to figure out my feelings. I’ve never been good at it.”

“Gotcha, Veth said you still liked us but I just wanted to hear you say it. I’m ok with that, is everyone else ok?” she prompted, and they nodded.

“I know that what you and Veth have is special and I’m totally ok with that, I just wanted to tell you it’s totally ok if you two wanna bone or do whatever weird stuff your hearts’ desire without us, Fjord and I have sex with just the two of us, and also I have sex with Beau sometimes who has sex with Yasha and also sometimes me but she’s pretty selective. So it’s totally ok.”

“Woah, wait, how long has that been happening?” Veth asked.

“I dunno, couple months? I thought you knew,” she said. Veth and Caleb shook their heads.

“Huh, could have sworn I mentioned it. Wait I kissed Beau in front of you yesterday Caleb!”

“I thought that was just. A thing you were doing. Which does sound silly as I say it.”

“Little bit, it’s ok.”

“So are you having sex with Caduceus too?” Veth asked.

“No, but I am,” Fjord said, grinning.

“What? Seriously? You’re not joking?” Veth asked, startled.

“I’m serious. We just got close.”

“So we’re the only ones that have been missing out on all this fucking. Unbelievable. If I had known everyone in my life is just cool with being all loosey-goosey I would have asked Caleb to rail me _ages_ ago!” she said. Caleb was definitely blushing again.

“Ok, I think we’re all up to date on everything I wanted to talk about. I think the two of you should have sex just with you together so you can kinda learn each other, then come play with me and Fjord, but that’s just a suggestion,” Jester said.

“Ah. Noted,” Caleb said, inspecting the floor.

They left and Caleb and Veth were left awkwardly alone.

“We should just do it, no sense in being awkward about it. If you’re ok with that?”

“Ah. Right- right now?”

“No time like the present.”

“Alright.”

They walked down to Caleb’s room in tense silence, the air brimming with anticipation.

They entered and Caleb locked the door. They got on the bed and looked at each other.

“Ah!” Veth screamed in her characteristic way. “Why is this so awkward?! Let’s just do it! Take your clothes off!” she yelled. Caleb was startled into a laugh and took off his clothes. In some of his downtime he’d been experimenting with making himself more clothes instead of just tearing larger holes for the arms in other clothes. It was mostly tunic style things with open backs since pants were very hard with how his legs were. Making pants for his ostritch-esque legs was very difficult. Also he didn’t wear underwear since he didn’t have any sensitive bits to protect.

He stripped his tunic and was totally naked as Veth pulled off her dress and tossed it, undoing her breast band and pulling off her undergarments. There was another awkward pause as they just looked at each other before Veth practically launched herself at him, and he caught her in a nest of tentacles and limbs. She kissed him sweetly and touched his face and he shuddered under her gentle touch. He wrapped her in more and more tentacles as she stood on his thighs kissing him. He gently moved to touch her between her legs with his thinner side tentacles and she shuddered. He opened his legs that she was standing on a bit to get good access to her, touching and teasing her. He gently held her with all his hands, his larger ones spanning her waist, her whole body barely the length of his long skinny torso. He lay back further and set her on his stomach, his lower mouth opening and his thick tongue plunging into her, licking and stretching her open, she was of course much smaller than Jester and he looked at her dubiously, mentally measuring.

“I see that look on your face, I know what you’re thinking, trust me, it’ll fit,” she said.

“…how do you know? You haven’t seen it that I can recall.”

“Uh. Well. Ok let me see it.”

He kept gently twitching his tongue in her and allowed his dick to emerge. They both blinked at it in confusion.

“That’s not how Jester- uh.”

“Ah, I see. I wouldn’t expect her to keep secrets from the rest of the group, it’s ok she talked about it.”

“Yeah she didn’t say it looked like that?”

“It… did not. Before.”

His dick, which had been mostly just like a blunt tentacle with some extra ridges on it, now looked something akin to a closed pinecone with no points, or a very strange looking flower. It was darker than the tentacle it was attached to, a dark grey color with a slight purple tint. The whole thing was about the same size, not huge, but certainly so by halfling standards.

“Are you saying the _Wildmother_ altered your _dick_?” she asked, shocked.

“It would. Appear so.”

Veth reached out and gently stroked it and Caleb gasped, it seemed to be more sensitive than before. The individual ‘petals’ seemed to open just a little at the stimulation and a clear liquid oozed out.

“Wow, that’s fascinating. Yeah, I can do that. It’s bigger than Yeza’s, of course, but its only a tiny bit bigger than his arm.”

Caleb blinked. “His… arm?”

“I guess Jester hasn’t gotten around to introducing you to that yet. It’s, uh, a thing. That people do.”

“Ok. Well, we have plenty of time to get you stretched out,” he said.

“And it looks like it lubes itself so that’s fun.”

“Indeed.”

He continued opening her, his smaller hands grasping her breasts as his larger held her in place at the waist. He slipped a thin tentacle in next to his tongue, gradually working it deeper to get her stretched out. He rubbed at her most pleasurable spot on the outside with the thumb of one of his smaller hands. He rubbed his dick over the area periodically, his tendril retracting to briefly wrap around it and get some of the lubricating fluid. His tongue could taste it, weirdly it had an almost sweet taste. He pressed a third tentacle into Veth and she groaned, panting at the stretch he could feel. Eventually he could have his tongue and both tentacles in her.

As he’d been working on her he’d discovered his dick had a certain amount of flexibility, he could make it ‘bloom’ and then contract it again. He pulled his tongue out and slowly slid his dick in and she groaned, grinning and panting. He continued licking at the sensitive nub as he fucked her, holding her firmly in place, legs splayed over him, as he drove the tentacle in and out. She was quieter than Jester and was gasping in time to his thrusts. She leaned forward onto her elbows to get a new angle, making a move to pull herself up so he scooted her higher and she kissed him again. She pressed her head into his collarbone, moaning loudly and clenching up as she came, and Caleb followed her soon after, feeling his flowerlike appendage bloom fully inside her, making her gasp as he locked in place. She collapsed on him, panting.

“Oh, wow, that was good,” she said.

“I agree.”

“Let’s keep going,” she said, grinning.

He licked and teased her, moving her down so he could lick all over her body with her lower tongue, cleaning up the spilled fluids. He gently thrust the swollen flower in and out, just slightly. Veth grinned at him,

“You can hold me in you and keep doing this, right?”

“Yes?”

“I dare you to do it and then walk to the library. You could even read a book and keep going, you’re good at multitasking,” she said. His eyebrows shot up.

“Oh, is that what you want?” he said, grinning. She nodded and gasped as he pressed into her with a touch more force, laughing breathlessly. He wrapped her in his side tentacles and opened his mouth beneath her, effortlessly folding her in and swallowing her, making sure the tentacle inside found her belly so she could breathe. His tongue and tentacles couldn’t reach her, he found to his dismay. He stood and slowly ran his hand over his distended belly. He actually appeared smaller than when he held her wrapped in his tentacles since being inside him she was situated further back in his body. There was still a noticeable bulge but as he wrapped his side tentacles over his chest and around his thighs instead of over his belly it was more disguised. Veth was still wiggling around in there and he felt her pleasuring herself as he slowly moved in her, gently flexing and rotating.

He put on his tunic and with the lose fabric and his hunch it wasn’t even noticeable. He walked to the library as casually as he could, settling in his chair and curling up, putting his knees under the tunic that created a tent that hid any difference. He opened a book and somewhat read it, mostly focused on pleasuring Veth. She shuddered and rocked in his belly, what felt like her hips twitching. There was no one in the library and he wished he could reach her as he ran his shorter hands over his wiggling belly, feeling her weight deep within. Then he felt a few more tentacles manifest, sensitive ones that he could feel quite well with as they moved over her body. They weren’t like his cock he didn’t think, and as he moved to her nipples to touch her he discovered to his delight that they had some sort of suction ability on the ends and it was extremely pleasurable as he latched onto her. He immediately moved another to suck on that incredibly sensitive part of her and she moaned so loud he heard it. The suction made her come almost immediately, he could feel her internal muscles clenching and fluttering around him, and he came again in a small burst of fluid, it felt like. She was twitching and almost kicking, but he could feel her hands gently stroking his internal walls, not signaling she wanted out.

He reached out with another tentacle inside and he didn’t notice that it felt different from the others, much thinner. It went right for the base of her skull and Caleb gasped as he was flooded with competing sensations. He felt stretched full, pleasure rippling through him edging into overstimulation, it was dark even though he could still see the library, he was in the dark and could hardly feel anything except the deep fullness inside him and the shocks of pleasure at the nipples and his sensitive nub. Neither of which Caleb had, as far as he was aware. These were Veth’s sensations. He felt where they were connected at the back of her head, somehow. He didn’t know what to make of that.

He skittered back to his room and lay back, opening his mouth as Veth popped her head out, still connected to him. She just looked at him in silent shock.

“What the fuck is this?” she asked.

“I don’t know!”

“You seriously do gain new powers every time you have sex!” she said.

“Can you feel me like I feel you?”

“Yeah, it was extremely confusing, I thought that I had grown a bunch of new limbs until I realized they were yours.”

“Were you scared?”

“I was startled, I wouldn’t say scared. It would be pretty cool if I grew some new limbs, I could dual wield crossbows,” she said, grinning.

“Well, you just got your body back, let’s let you enjoy as is for now,” he said with a small smile.

“I think I’m about spent sexwise, my legs feel like jelly.”

“I know, I’ll pull out when it relaxes. Was it everything you wanted?”

“That and more, did you enjoy it?”

“Immensely.”

“Leave me in here for a while, I wanna see what all we can do with this weird mental thing.”

“Of course, I’m also very curious.”

She ducked down and he swallowed her down again, and it wasn’t long before his dick relaxed and he gently removed it. He was sitting in his bed but also curled up in a warm, dark place that felt safe. He felt an urge to stand up and move around so he did. He walked around the room and then wondered why he had done that. He realized with a start that Veth had managed to communicate something to him mentally, only a vague notion, but it was exciting. He put his hands on his belly and tried to ask her to roll over and after a few seconds she did, and he flapped his hands excitedly. It was strange to simultaneously feel her roll over inside him and also feel her sensations of rolling as well.

He opened his door and found Jester out there, putting back a porn book that she’d also bought at that sex shop.

“Oh hi Caleb. Did you and Veth work everything out?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. Caleb blushed and nodded. Her eyes darted around, searching, before settling on Caleb’s midsection and she gasped, grinning. “Oh my gosh did you _EAT_ HER? You two are _SO_ kinky I love it!” she squealed, delighted. Caleb sighed.

“We discovered some new abilities I have,” he said, giving a brief explanation.

“That is so cool! Oh man I have so many questions.”

She proceeded to pepper him with questions as they walked to the kitchen about how it felt and the like.

“You should drink this water and see if it dumps on her or if you can make it divert around her!” she said.

“Things automatically go to the lower stomach, the upper is rarely used, I’ve never had much use for it before. I’m not certain my upper mouth even connects to it.”

He attempted to swallow the water into his upper stomach and after a couple times Veth felt a bit of water hit her head.

“Interesting.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon connected and into the evening, eventually finding their precision in the information they could send grew. They weren’t words per say, but general notions of surprising complexity could be communicated. They sent pleased feelings back and forth at their progress. Their bond increased the longer they were connected, and Caleb was curious if it would stay at that level of connection if she left and returned, but he didn’t want to test that just yet. He carefully swallowed the copper wire for her to cast Message just in case.

They slept that night and Caleb focused on her sensations of being wholly safe and protected, cradled. He slept more peacefully than he had in a while. He woke to that same feeling, but found when he moved that he moved within that space. It took him a second to process what had happened. They somehow had switched places. Astonishing. With focus he found he could view his senses, her senses, the senses she was… currently using? The outside senses, his usual body’s eyes and ears. Veth had awoken.

“Holy shit! Caleb! Are you ok?”

He sent back an assent.

“Do you want to. Stop?”

He sent a negative.

“Ok.”

She awkwardly wiggled around, limbs going everywhere, as she tried to get out of bed. She seemed unable to manage his weird balance to stand so she crawled slowly around the room.

“Caleb your body is so weird! How do you knees even do this?” she said. He sent a humorous agreement.

“I’m hungry,” she announced. Caleb reflected that it was probably not ideal to be in her belly while she was hungry and unused to the hunger of this form. He sent about the sides of meat stored in the basement. The others weren’t about as she skittered with some speed to the basement. She had no problem going after the stored raw meat with her previous experience being a goblin. She also had some experience with the intensities of hunger in a goblin form but not with what his body demanded. Caleb sensed her become utterly overwhelmed in how his body lost itself in the act of eating. She wasn’t eating her own body or dumping raw meat on him by accident, so it was fine for now. Hopefully someone wouldn’t come down before she was full or things could become dicey. Caleb was relatively certain he could wrest control from her, the only question was how quickly. The second chamber of his stomach was located behind the first, so Caleb was slowly pushed outward. Veth was learning how to use the second mouth and side tentacles, he knew from experience it was hard to track so many limbs, many of them were just inexpertly flapping around in the general direction of the food. The ones on her back were moving around but he was certain she wouldn’t notice if they detected movement.

His space grew more tight but Caleb found the slight squashing sensation rather pleasant. He closed his eyes and was almost meditating to the loud gurgling noises like they were soothing sea sounds or something. He took the opportunity while she was distracted to shyly explore her body. He gently cupped her breasts, or maybe his, temporarily. He had never really experimented much in polymorphing himself into things that weren’t animals, so the sensation of having breasts was novel. They were quite entertaining to squish he felt. He felt her stomach, soft but with firm muscles underneath.

They had spoken on it some, in quiet moments, that she had thought about making herself thinner or prettier, but she hadn’t wanted to do that, in the end. But she had kept the muscles beneath built up with the hard life of adventuring and, after some debate, had kept all the scars of this life along with her tattoo. He ran his hands over thin raised scratches and bite wounds. Burns. The muscles underneath the layers of softness were lean and wiry, this was no longer the body of a housewife. He shyly felt between his legs, not pleasuring himself, just exploring, slipping a finger in to feel the soft folds. He felt of his knees, his feet, his hands, his face, his teeth. He was… thoughtful. He didn’t feel bad, in a body so similar to what he’d lost in terms of general composition. He was at peace with it. He still felt righteous anger towards the people who had done this to him, and he would take them down. But his form was his, for better or worse. He was content to be in Veth’s body for a while, but it wasn’t for him.

He’d been keeping watch through Veth’s eyes in the back of his head and saw she had finished the side of the carcass and was eyeballing the second. He knew his body could eat it but would be hard pressed to do any physical activity. She was new controlling the hunger, even dampened now that he was free from the influence of Tharizdun. He certainly didn’t want an incident. He sent her a little encouraging feeling and that was all she needed to leap on the other hung side of beef and tear it down from the hook to begin devouring it. Caleb shifted around so he was facing into the inner wall that was slowly swelling outward into him, sort of starfishing against it. The inner walls of this space were lined with small cilia that provided a gentle tickling sensation against his body. He felt as she probably didn’t the pressure building within and gently rubbed at the stomach walls. She heard a sound and didn’t notice, but he did. The door. He got out the wire wrapped carefully in her hair so it wouldn’t fall out or poke him and whispered into it.

“Whoever just opened the basement door stay out!”

The door closed.

“Veth, what’s up?” Fjord answered.

“Too much to explain via message, we’ll get back to you. We’re good, just don’t come down.”

“Ok, I’ll let the others know.”

Veth finished the meal, bones and all, and flopped over on her side, jostling everything somewhat but they were ok. Gradually her mind cleared.

“Caleb, jeze, are you ok in there?”

He sent back an assent.

“I really lost it, huh?”

A humored assent.

“That was way more intense than I was expecting, you feel that all the time? I had no idea it was that bad.”

She drew out a bucket of water and washed them off and then did the floor too, rinsing it into the drain. She crept up the stairs and listened, and after hearing nothing skittered, much more slowly, back across the living room into Caleb’s room once more. She curled up in Caleb’s bed and groaned.

“I’m so full,” she complained. Caleb made sympathetic thoughts and rubbed her belly. She lay on her back so the weight wasn’t crushing down on Caleb. Her stomach was taunt and firm beneath him as he moved within. The act of eating had excited her, as it often did him, and he felt the internal tentacles snaking toward him. The suction ended tentacles played with his nipples, latching on and making him groan. He continued to rub the swollen and gurgling mass beneath him as she started to suck on his most sensitive spot, making him yelp and grind his hips against her. He could feel her hands rubbing her stomach on the outside just a bit on his back.

He felt her dick against his entrance as he was still somewhat starfished on her belly, legs apart. He gasped as she started to press in. She was still open from yesterday but apparently she was a lot more willing to take risks with her body than he was. She pushed gently in and out with the tip, feeling out how tight it was, the fluid coating the area, before thrusting just a little deeper, and a bit more, slowly inching in as the other tubes sucked on him. The one on his button adjusted position and he came explosively almost immediately, kicking out a little on instinct. At that moment as his internal muscles fluttered she pressed her dick the rest of the way in and he yelled as the motion and continued sucking triggered a second orgasm almost immediately. She thrust in a few more times before also climaxing deep inside. He groaned, rubbing his whole body against her as she kept at him until he was so wrung out he could barely twitch. He lay there dazed and spent. They relaxed for a little while longer and then went out to lounge with the others, Veth not nearly as embarrassed of her swollen belly as Caleb tended to be, very little hidden under his tunic. Veth explained what had happened to the others and they were also fascinated.

“Also, Caleb is like, way more flexible than it makes any sense for him to be, I’m not entirely convinced he has bones,” Veth said.

“Really?” Jester asked. Veth lifted her leg to grab the back of her own head with her foot in response. Jester gasped, delighted.

“Oh my gods, Caleb, you have been holding out on us!” she said. Caleb muttered into the wire,

“Nein, it just didn’t come up.”

“Veth! Veth I just remembered, you gotta tell me cause Caleb won’t, was he lying about not having a butthole!?” Jester said, bouncing up and down. Caleb groaned loud enough that he was sure they heard outside.

“I actually already knew the answer to that,” Veth said.

“You do? I mean I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, you like knew his feet down to the last detail.”

“I just pay attention!”

“Ok but how did his butthole even come up? It’s not like he enjoys walking around naked. I was too distracted to look when I saw him naked.”

“It’s Caleb’s business if he wants to tell you about his butthole,” Veth said.

“It is ok Veth, she will just look next time that we are naked,” Caleb messaged.

“Ok. He doesn’t have a butthole,” Nott said.

“What? No way!” Jester said.

“It’s true.”

“How does he poop?” she asked, amazed.

“He’s got a tiny dimensional portal that opens up inside him when he’s done digesting stuff and it all gets sucked into the Abyss,” Veth explained.

Jester squinted at her. “Its super hard to tell when you’re in Caleb’s body but I think you’re lying.”

“Alright, he doesn’t like, poop like we do, apparently it’s more like what owls do? All the stuff he can’t digest, and that’s very little, he just throws it back up but it’s like, and I swear I’m not making this up, it’s like a single gem the size of your fist! He just hocks it up out of his second mouth, it’s crazy. They change color depending on what he eats. I found one early on and he made me throw it away after explaining what it was. He like, smashes things in him so tight after he absorbs everything that it turns into a crystal!”

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Fjord said, amazed.

“Caleb, you have not been thinking here! We could have _totally_ been keeping your shit gems and trying to sell them!”

“Jester I don’t think that any jeweler would believe they were gems, they’re likely going to just be seen as some weird quartz, not very valuable.”

“You don’t know that Caleb! You could be shitting diamonds or something! I read that gems form when rocks are like, smashed in the hot magma in the earth in a certain way or something, you could totally be doing that!”

“Jester my body is not as hot as magma, I’m currently in it I think I would notice if I was burning.”

“Caleb next time you poop you have got to let me see it!”

“Can we maybe call it something other than pooping? Talking about handling poop is grossing me out, gives me flashbacks to having to clean out the bilge,” Fjord said, looking briefly haunted.

“Sure. Caleb doesn’t poop, Caleb makes gems!” Jester said.

“You don’t have to wait to see one,” Veth muttered.

“What?” Jester asked.

“They were shiny and no one would miss them! So I grabbed… some.”

“I probably should have suspected as such,” Caleb muttered to her.

“I’ve been reverse pickpocketing them into the bag. Because, uh. My bag got too heavy.”

“How many have you gotten?” Caleb asked, astonished.

“I had the same idea as Jester, I thought they might be valuable! I just didn’t like the idea of you just leaving them buried in the ground when they may be like, exactly the same as rocks pulled from the ground. Even quartz has some value.”

“Grab me one Veth!” Jester said, picking up the bag and holding it out. Veth reached her hand in and pulled out what for all intents and purposes was a crystal, a blueish color, decently clear. Jester gasped.

“Caleb I am SO jealous that you can just make gems! Even if they’re not valuable we could totally decorate with them! We don’t have to tell Beau and Yasha, it’ll be hilarious.”

In Veth’s belly Caleb buried his face in his hands, glad that he was unseen. He could not handle this preposterousness. It was too bizarre. All the crazy things they had seen and this would be what broke him and sent him into another coma. He refused to watch through Veth’s senses as she pulled out more and more rocks, retreating deep within.

He sensed Veth mentally contacting him. He became aware again and looked in horror at a veritable dragon’s hoard of gems. Most were blue, green, or amber, but some were purple or clear.

They grabbed three good ones and took them gleefully to a jeweler, who determined that they were some strange quartz that could be decently valuable if polished and cut. Caleb was of course mortified.

Eventually Veth disconnected them and they were instantly snapped back into their own bodies. Caleb was just fine with that.

Caleb never wanted to think about that whole thing again, but unfortunately Veth was taking another trip home, now that she’d settled things with Caleb, and was unavailable as a distraction. They weren’t retired, only on an extended vacation. The general plan was to just take three or four months to decompress. She wanted to spend as much time as possible with her family now, assuring Caleb that when they were adventuring again she would be all his. Caleb was perfectly fine with that, and he knew he could go visit her whenever he wanted, she’d assured him multiple times he should and it wouldn’t be weird with Yeza and had strongly implied she wanted to ‘introduce them properly’. Caleb was considering maybe doing that. In the meantime he went to Jester to tell her he wanted to play, as she put it, with her and Fjord again.

“Great! I’ve been thinking about this for weeks! Fjord and I have been talking out a little game we wanna play and I could use your help!”

She outlined a fairly elaborate scenario to him, it was long enough to be a dirty short play almost, there were was a script and cues and everything. Caleb was fairly impressed by the breadth and scope of the project.

“This has all the things Fjord and I like, mostly Fjord, because I like telling people what to do and the best part of that is giving people exactly what they want, and also I like a lot of what he likes,” she explained. “You are pretty new at this and Veth is new to doing more… I guess complicated stuff is how I’d put it? She’s done things with her husband but she’s never played a lot of games like Fjord and I play. But once I get a better handle on what the two of you like I would absolutely love to make you your own fun game!” she said enthusiastically.

“I, uh, I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done so far.”

“I know you have, but you can’t like everything, there’s gotta be some things you like more or less, and we’re gonna find them, don’t you worry,” she said, grinning. Caleb wasn’t sure if he was excited or scared. “But you have to tell me if you really don’t like something, sex games can sometimes really mess with your head if you’re not careful, can take you to a bad place, and I know you have a lot of bad places, Caleb. For this you’ll know what’s coming. Since it’s for Fjord you get to know everything we’re doing and why and I’ll tell you all of what Fjord likes, just in case you see a good opportunity to improv a little something. I have a general plan of things I want to happen in the game but if Fjord responds in unexpected ways then we’ll follow that instead. If there’s anything I’m talking about you think will make you feel bad we won’t do it, and you have to tell me, you’re not allowed to hurt yourself, remember?” she said sternly.

Caleb nodded and listened intently to the whole thing, offering some shy suggestions and giving more detailed clarifications on what he was physically capable of doing. There were a couple elements of the game that were… more adventurous than he was wholly sure about, but nothing that seemed initially terrible. Some of it was a bit shocking that Fjord liked such things. Caleb didn’t judge, but it didn’t sound like something he’d want done to him, although he conceded it could feel different in the moment.

The preparation was done, and the curtain lifted with Fjord attached to a chain staked in the garden up on the roof. Caduceus would be joining for a part in this game. He stood next to Fjord, gently petting him on the head as Fjord crouched on the ground. He was wearing a collar and harness and nothing else. Jester and Caleb entered the scene, Jester in a sleek black dress and Caleb also only wearing a collar. There really wasn’t a way to get a harness for him without actually showing his weirdly-shaped body to someone for measurements so it was just a collar. Jester held a long leash and led him as he crawled beside her. His longer arms made it easy for him to walk on all fours, and Fjord’s eyes walked onto him as he moved, and he swallowed. Caleb moved a little more sinuously, locking onto Fjord’s neck with his eyes, stalking towards him with interest. He could see Fjord’s pupils dilate from where he was as they approached. Jester stopped before Caduceus, with Caleb and Fjord right in front of each other, and at her sharp but idle command Caleb sat before Fjord.

“How much?” she asked imperiously, addressing Caduceus and hardly looking at Fjord. The affect she was going for was a woman who was used to getting what she wanted, she’d told him, and she was nailing it.

“Three-hundred gold,” Caduceus said, petting his head. His acting skills were pretty good and apparently extended to things other than lying to dead people. Serious thought had actually gone into the price and the value and versatility of whatever creature Fjord was supposed to be.

“Hmm. A bit steep. I’ll want to inspect him first,” she said. Caduceus waved magnanimously. She looped Caleb’s leash around her wrist, obvious in her body language that she knew he would never disobey her or move a muscle. She opened Fjord’s mouth and inspected his teeth, pulling at his tusks and looking at his gums.

“His tusks are good,” she complimented and Fjord squirmed, blushing. She tugged at his ears, looking in them, then told him to roll over and he did, having plenty of slack on the chain. She gently rubbed his belly and he twitched his leg a little in happiness. She handled his junk casually and with only mild interest, and of course Fjord was already pretty hard from this whole thing. She pushed up one of his legs to look at his hole.

“He looks clean,” she said.

“He’s very clean. He’s a very obedient and good boy,” Caduceus said. Fjord sat back crouched again as Jester stood, and Caduceus petted him again, making Fjord close his eyes and lean into it.

“I’ll have to see if he gets along well with my Caleb,” Jester said. Caduceus nodded and unclipped the line from the collar as Jester unclipped Caleb. “Go say hi,” Jester encouraged. Caleb crawled up to him and sniffed at his neck as Fjord stood his ground. He licked his neck slowly and Fjord rolled over on his back. Caleb sniffed his dick and licked it, his tongue wrapping around it, making Fjord let out a small yelp. He let his dick out to rub it over Fjord’s hole, prepared beforehand. He looked up to Jester and whined.

“Oh, he really likes him, how adorable. Go ahead Caleb. Let’s let them have their fun and I’ll get you your coin,” Jester said.

“Alright, be a good boy Fjord,” Caduceus said. They took a couple steps back. Caleb focused on Fjord, sucking on his cock a little before abruptly grabbing him up and moving to the outer wall of the garden, just the right height to sling Fjord over it so he could be looking out as Caleb leaned over him from behind. He subtly cast a major image around them of the normal empty tower top, which Fjord couldn’t see. He leaned down to whisper in Fjord’s ear.

“Now, you better be quiet, or the neighbors will hear all the commotion and look up here to see you getting railed by some sort of monster and loving it,” Caleb said, a bit of a growl in his undertone. Fjord gasped quietly, looking around with a bit of alarm. Jester had told him that Fjord loved the idea of maybe getting caught, that people could be watching. Caleb slid into Fjord and fucked him fast and hard, smashing him against the wall hard enough to make him feel it but not enough to hurt him. His longer hands braced him and his side tentacles wrapped all over Fjord, his second mouth licking Fjord’s back. His shorter hands touched him all along his chest and belly, caressing him, pinching his nipples. He turned his head and gently clamped his jaws over the back of Fjord’s neck, his mouth wide enough that he could clamp over the whole back half. He put pressure enough to break the skin just a little, and Fjord, as Jester predicted, was unable to keep from moaning loudly. A lot. He was trying to stifle it but he was pretty loud.

Caleb slipped, with some difficulty, one of the sucking tentacles completely over his cock. He thrust his hips against the wall as the tentacle sucked him, and it was very soon that Caleb felt the base of his dick start to swell. He thrust a couple more times in him and came himself, his cock flowering and expanding deep in Fjord. A couple more strong sucking pulls and Fjord came into the tube, locking up in it. Caleb kept fucking him, moving his dick in Fjord and continuing to suck on his sensitive cock, making him whine from the overstimulation. The tentacle around Fjord felt extremely good, being penetrated for the first time, in a manner of speaking, was a good feeling to Caleb. He liked it.

It didn’t take long for him to come again, more liquid gushing from him into Fjord. His more delicate arms felt and petted his lower belly, feeling where the lubricating liquid and come that oozed from his flower-like member was pooling in Fjord. Caleb for this part was instructed to ‘fuck him until he’s complaining he’s going to die, that’s how you know he’s ready’. He continued fucking Fjord from oversensitivity to eventual arousal again, in the meantime he came a couple more times, driving his expanded dick repeatedly over Fjord’s most sensitive spot inside him. His lower belly was slowly expanding and gurgling as Caleb poured his pleasure into him, Caleb felt how rounded he was getting under his hands and it excited him further. That was interesting.

Fjord came again and was whining as Caleb kept going. Eventually his knot went down again and his dick very slowly rose, his belly full and sloshing a bit with each thrust as Caleb filled him. Fjord whined, breathlessly saying something along the lines of how he was going to die. That was Caleb’s signal to pick up the pace, sending another sucking tentacle out to slip over Fjord’s balls as well, and Fjord made a wailing noise he’d never heard a person make before. It seemed like a good noise and he came again soon after, collapsing bonelessly against the wall. He’d passed out. Caleb gathered him up and carried him down to the Happy Room to recover. Eventually he woke.

“Fuck,” Fjord said succinctly.

“Everything you’d hoped for?” Caleb asked.

“That and more,” he said.

“That went well, I think,” Jester said.


End file.
